LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT 
AND   PALESTINE 


W^- 


THE    SPHINX    AND 
THE     PYRAMID 


LETTERS  FROM  EGYPT 
AND  PALESTINE 


BY 

MALTBIE   DAVENPORT  BABCOCK 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1902 


Copyright,  1902,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published,  March,  1902 


mow  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


"  He  went  to  see  the  Holy  Land  ; 
He  has  gone  to  the  Land  of  Holiness  itself." 

When  Dr.  Babcock  sailed  from  New 
York,  in  February,  1901,  on  a  trip  to  the 
Holy  Land,  the  hope  was  expressed  to  him 
that  he  might  find  time  to  send  letters  to 
be  read  at  the  meetings  of  the  Men's  As- 
sociation of  Brick  Church,  to  be  held  during 
his  absence.  To  this  wish  he  most  cor- 
dially responded,  and  the  letters  in  this 
volume  are  the  result. 

With  his  usual  generosity,  and  careless 
of  the  labor  it  imposed  upon  him,  Dr.  Bab- 
cock did  not  content  himself  with  brief, 
kindly,  letters  of  remembrance,  as  was  ex- 
pected, but  sent  a  record  of  the  entire 
journey. 


The  party  of  which  he  was  a  member 
travelled  rapidly,  and  it  was  only  under 
most  difficult  circumstances,  and  as  chance 
offered,  that  there  was  any  opportunity  for 
writing.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  letters 
took  the  direct  and  simple  form  of  a  journal. 
The  record  closes  abruptly,  for  even  then 
the  fatal  fever  was  stealing  upon  him  and 
he  could  add  no  more. 

The  letters  are  given  just  as  written, 
with  the  omission,  especially  in  the  first,  of 
a  few  personal  allusions.  Dr.  Riggs,  of 
Auburn  Seminary,  the  leader  of  the  party, 
has  kindly  verified  the  historical  and  geo- 
graphical references. 

So  full  of  interest  are  these  letters  that 
there  has  been  a  generally  expressed  wish  for 
them  in  a  permanent  form.  In  response  to 
this  they  are  published  by  arrangement 
with  Mrs.  Babcock. 

These  letters  were  greatly  prized  by  the 
members  of  the  Men's  Association,  to 
vi 


whom  every  line  was  a  personal  message 
from  their  beloved  pastor,  and  they  are 
now  put  forth  in  the  assurance  that  they 
will  reach  a  wider  circle,  which  also  sadly 
misses  the  loving  and  helpful  hand  that 
sent  them. 

Hexry  L.  Smith, 
President  Men's  Association, 
Brick  Presbyterian  Chm*ch. 

New  York,  February,  1902. 


LIST    OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Sphinx  and  the  Pyra:mid     Frontispiece 
From  a  photograph  hy  M.  D.  Babcock. 

Facing  page 

Entrance   to   the   Tomb    of    Seti    I. 

Thebes-Necropolis       ....     22 
From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

The  Ramesseum 34 

From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

The     First     Camp     between     Joppa 

AND  Jerusalem 50 

From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

The     Oak    of     Mamrk  —  Abraham's 

Oak 58 

From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

The  Dead  Sea  and  the  Wilderness 

of  Jud.ea 68 

From  a  photograph  by  D.  L.  Elmendorf. 
ix 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Facing  page 

The  Damascus  Road  out  of  Jerusa- 
lem, NEAR  Bethel       ....     92 
From,  a  photograph  hy  M.  D.  Babcock. 

Ruins  over  Jacob''s  Well,  near  She- 

CHEM 94 

From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

A  Goatherd,  near  Nazareth       .     .102 
From  a  photograph  hy  M.  D.  Babcock. 

First  View  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  .  108 
From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

Grotto    of  Pan — one    of  the    Sour- 
ces OF  THE  Jordan     .     .     .     .114 
From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

A  Family  Carryall,  near  Dothan  .  120 
From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 

President  Bliss  and  the  Protestant 

Syrian  College  at  Beirut  .     .126 
From  a  photograph  by  M.  D.  Babcock. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Facing  page 

The  Temple  of  the  Sun,  Baalbec    .  136 

From  a  photograph  hy  D.  L.  Elmendorf. 

Bull's     Head    Bath,     or    Fouxtaix, 

Ephesus 142 

From  a  photograph  hy  M.  D.  Babcock. 

Constantinople  from  the  Steamer    .  146 

From  a  photograph  by  D.  L.  Elmendorf. 


S.  S.  WERRA, 
February  24,  1901. 

I  am  afraid  I  could  get  no  message  to 
you  and  my  brothers  of  the  Men's  Associ- 
ation from  Gibraltar  in  time  for  the  next 
meeting,  and  so  send  this  greeting  from  the 
steamer  from  the  not  distant  point  of  Sandy 
Hook,  "  thar  or  tharabouts."  It  seems 
something  of  a  paradox,  but  nothing  has 
made  mo  feel  so  much  at  home  in  New  York 
as  going  away.  So  many  people  have  writ- 
ten me  notes  or  spoken  to  me — telling  me  of 
this  or  that,  of  some  sermon  or  letter  or  little 
"confab"  that  had  meant  something  to  them 
— that  I  have  suddenly  felt  that  I  really  be- 
longed to  you,  and  found  my  heart  quicken- 
ing at  the  thought  of  coming  back  home.  I 
wish  I  could  peep  into  the  room  at  the  meet- 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

ing  and  see  what  is  going  on.  I  have  deeper 
roots  there  than  you  think — for  no  organi- 
zation in  the  church  has  meant  so  much  to 
me  in  the  way  of  friendship,  nor  made  me 
so  hopefully  aware  of  power — patent  and 
latent.  .  .  .  To  divide  burdens  and 
yet  centralize  responsibility  is  the  art  and 
secret  of  accomplishment.  .  .  .  Noth- 
ing is  so  important  as  to  awaken  and 
strengthen  the  sense  of  Brotherhood,  and 
what  will  more  surely  do  it  than  for  a  man 
to  find  work  for  another  man  ?  There  may 
be  better  preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  the 
Kingdom  than  this,  but  I  doubt  it. 

I  hope,  too,  that  in  our  Monday  evenings 
together  we  may  remember  that  sometimes 
new  friends  are  more  important  than  old 
ones.  To  digest  one  who  is  a  stranger  is 
way  ahead  of  enjoying  one  who  is  familiar- 
May  I  suggest,  too,  that  no  one  of  your 
Sunday  preachers  is  going  to  be  depressed 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

by  your  speaking  to  him,  or  sending  him  a 
message,  if  you  tell  him  he  has  been  a  help 
to  you. 

With  all  hearty  and  happy  greetings 
Faithfully  and  affectionately  yours, 
(Signed)         Maltbie  D.  Babcock. 


S.  S  "\VERIIA, 
March  4,  1901. 

Still  on  the  water,  and  to-day  very  still, 
so  that  the  sick  are  looking  up,  and  the 
lame  leap  like  a  hart.  Last  Thursday 
we  had  a  southwest  gale  that  drove  every- 
one down  below  who  did  not  have  oil-skins. 
Life  lines  were  s-tretched,  and  everything 
battened  down.  Mr.  Frank  Hastings  and 
I  were  on  the  bridge  with  the  Cap- 
tain when  a  tremendous  sea  struck  our 
weather  rail  and  went  clean  over  every- 
thing, sending  the  spray  over  the  smoke- 
stacks, and  smashing  one  of  the  davits,  and 
sending  the  third  life-boat  dangling  help- 
lessly by  the  ship's  side,  but  mighty  dan- 
gerously. The  Captain  sang  out  his  orders 
and  was  by  the  tangle  in  a  minute  slashing 
4 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

away  with  his  knife  at  lashings,  fearing  in 
the  pounding  seas  that  a  port-hole  glass 
might  be  stove  in,  or  even  the  side  of  the 
ship.  He  and  the  men  working  with  him 
were  deluged  by  sea  after  sea,  but  the  boat 
was  cut  clean  away  and  no  harm  done. 
It  happened  opposite  our  state-room,  and 
would  have  put  us  in  a  pretty  salt  pickle, 
ruining  everything  we  had,  if  our  dead- 
light had  been  broken.  Two  days  after 
the  Azores  swung  into  sight  with  occa- 
sional swirls  of  mist  that  gave  us  the  most 
beautiful  rainbows  against  the  fields  and 
mountains,  making  thoughts  of  Patmos  and 
the  delectable  country  come  to  our  minds. 
To-morrow  we  expect  to  reach  Gibraltar, 
and  get  our  foot  on  terra  firma  again — 
less  teiTor  and  much  firmer.  I  shall  not 
send  this  letter  now,  but  later  from  Naples 
or  Cairo.  Our  ship  company  is  a  delight- 
ful one,  with  not  an  uncongenial  spirit 
5 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

discovered.  Yesterday  we  had  morning 
and  evening  service.  The  httle  organ  that 
we  brought  along  was  perfectly  in  tune 
with  the  piano,  and  we  had  a  fine  tutti 
effect.  I  preached  in  the  morning,  and  the 
Rev.  Father  Collins  (R.  C.)  spoke  of  his 
work  in  Dakota,  and  Mr.  Elsing  of  his 
work  in  New  York  in  the  evening.  A 
more  broad-minded,  brotherly,  and  utterly 
Christian  man  than  Father  Collins  I  never 
heard,  and  his  account  of  the  way  he  works 
with  the  Protestants  in  movements  like  our 
Federation  of  Churches  w-as  highly  encour- 
aging. How  interesting  Mr.  Elsing  was 
you  all  know. 

Our  Commander,  Captain  Polack,  is 
an  ideal  ship-master,  six  feet  two,  broad 
and  brawny,  genial,  without  a  touch  of 
officiousness,  vigilant,  every  inch  a  sailor 
and  every  ounce  a  gentleman.  No  trav- 
eller among  us  that  does  not  say  he  is 
6 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

by  and    large    the    finest   Captain  he  ever 
met. 

I  have  worked  pretty  steadily  at  the  Ge- 
ogi'aphy  and  History  of  the  Holy  Land 
and  Egypt,  and  am  now  beginning  to  al- 
low myself  more  diverting  leeway  in  read- 
ing. Every  day  we  have  some  four-part 
male  singing  from  the  old  Arions.  Mr. 
Hastings  and  I  are  the  bassos,  Dr.  Wilton 
Merle  Smith  second  tenor,  and  Mrs.  Bab- 
cock  first  tenor.  Dr.  Smith  and  I  played 
ball  several  days  with  a  big  indoor  base- 
ball mitil — alas  !  it  ricochetted  overboard. 
I  have  a  regular  base-ball,  and  a  catcher's 
mit,  but  these  I  do  not  care  to  imperil,  pre- 
ferring to  save  them  for  the  shadow  of  the 
Pyramids  and  the  rocks  of  Engedi. 

March  7. 
Tuesday  two  Continents   slowly  loomed 
up — Europe  and  Africa.     It  stirs  one  deeply 

7 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

after  the  long  loneliness  of  the  sea,  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  low-lying  land,  and  see  it 
slowly  rising  from  the  ocean  as  though  in 
the  old  Miocene  day.  Over  the  submerged 
Atlantis,  into  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  past 
the  noble  Atlas  Mountains  of  North  Africa 
in  an  Alpine  glow  at  sunset,  into  the  glory 
of  the  night  as  the  full  moon  rose  over  the 
crags  on  the  African  side,  up  to  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules,  and  under  the  great  sleeping 
lion  of  Gibraltar — to  drop  anchor  and  be 
still  for  the  first  moment  since  leaving 
home  !  The  huge  rock  was  sparkling  with 
lights  like  glowworms.  We  all  piled  into 
a  little  steamer  that  fussily  puffed  us  to 
shore,  where  we  scrambled  through  the  half- 
Moorish,  half-English  town  for  an  hour. 
Fresh  violets  and  jonquils  everywhere  for 
sale,  and  dates  and  figs.  Heliotrope  blos- 
somed on  the  walls  and  strayed  over  into 
the   streets   asking   to   be   plucked.       The 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

Turks  or  Moors  in  their  booths  or  strolhng 
the  streets,  hke  big  bags  in  the  wind  blown 
around  on  slim  legs  and  big  feet,  were 
picturesque  and  queer  enough,  especially  by 
the  side  of  slim  Tommy  Atkins  with  his 
tight  red  jacket,  and  his  pill-box  on  one 
ear.  It  was  little  more  than  a  scamper,  for 
we  were  late  and  the  Captain  grudged  us 
time,  and  Ave  had  our  anchor  up  and  were 
off  by  10.30  p.  M.  A  good  part  of  the  next 
day  we  ran  fairly  close  to  Spain  with  the 
rocks  all  colors  in  the  sunlight,  and  the 
high  ridge  of  the  snow-capped  Sierra  Ne- 
vadas  bitten  sharply  against  the  blue  sky. 
One  of  the  famous  landmarks  is  a  triangular 
cliff  of  white  marble  the  shape  of  a  sail,  and 
called  "  Vela  Blanca."  It  is  included  in  tlie 
sailing  directions  of  five  hundred  years  ago, 
and  was  one  of  Columbus\s  guides.  Every 
evening  at  five  Professor  Riggs  gives  us  an 
informal  talk  on  Palestine,  its  geology,  the 
9 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

identification  of  historic  places,  the  Macca- 
bean  period,  ancient  and  modern  Jerusalem, 
and  the  like.  To-night  the  Captain's  din- 
ner, and  the  concert.  Mr.  Ferris  is  to  pre- 
side at  the  concert,  and  I  am  to  take  several 
parts  in  solos,  duets,  quartets,  and  what- 
nots, and  the  air  is  much  disturbed  with  re- 
hearsals. We  sighted  Sardinia  this  after- 
noon. It  was  blowing  such  a  gale  when  we 
reached  Naples  —  the  smoke  of  Vesuvius 
being  driven  down  its  slopes — that  it  was 
thought  best  to  spend  the  night  on  board. 
The  landing  had  to  be  made  in  a  tender, 
and  the  waves  were  smashing  over  the  quay 
too  boisterously  for  comfort.  Mrs.  Bab- 
cock  and  I  spent  Saturday  riding  and  rum- 
maging about  the  fantastic,  fascinating  city, 
mixture  of  old  and  new,  high  and  low,  no- 
ble and  debased  Italy.  What  pirates  the 
cabmen  are,  with  their  mad  little  ponies  and 
diminutive    victorias  —  slashing   along   the 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

stony  streets,  and  cracking  their  whips  hke 
pistol-shots  !  A  bargain  in  advance  is  the 
only  safety.  Most  of  our  friends  went  to 
Pompeii,  but  we  had  been  before  and  chose 
the  matchless  Aquarium  again — where  fairy 
plants  of  the  sea-bottom  blossom  into  liv- 
ing creatures  before  your  eyes  and  fore- 
shorten the  slow  moving  cycles.  A  cousin 
of  mine  owns  the  Villa  Floridiana  in  Vo- 
mero — the  height  above  Naples — and  there 
we  spent  part  of  the  day.  Sunday  there 
was  a  strange  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  filling 
the  air  with  a  saffron  impalpable  powder — 
like  a  yellow  smoke — that  made  the  most 
weird  effects  and  frightened  the  common 
Neapolitans  as  though  it  were  an  ominous 
prelude.  Such  a  phenomenon  had  not  been 
known  for  a  generation.  At  sunset  there 
was  no  sign  of  the  sun,  but  the  world  was 
enveloped  for  us  in  a  sea  of  orange  radiance, 
blotting  out  any  distant  object.    Then  came 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

a  shower  that  washed  the  air  clean  and 
brought  out  the  stars.  AVherever  the  rain 
fell  on  a  hat,  or  coat,  or  umbrella,  it  left  a 
spot  of  yellow  sulphurous  mud.  The  vol- 
cano theory  I  learned  afterward  is  wrong. 
It  was  yellow  dust  from  the  African  desert, 
blown  to  Europe  by  Sirocco,  but  a  most  un- 
usual phenomenon  called  "  mud-rain  "  and 
"  blood-rain  "  from  color. 

At  ten  P.M.  we  were  off  on  this  noble 
steamer  Ortona  of  the  Orient  Line,  bound 
from  London  to  Australia.  Yesterday  we 
sailed  between  Italy  and  Sicily  in  the  nar- 
row strait  the  classic  navigator  affected  so 
to  dread  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis.  It 
did  not  seem  so  awesome  to  us  on  this  big 
boat,  but  I  can  easily  imagine  what  a  skit- 
tish time  their  square-rigged  craft  or  lum- 
bering triremes  could  have  here  when  old 
ocean  let  some  of  his  testy  gales  out  of  the 
bag.     This  afternoon  we  expect,  like  Paul, 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

to  "sail  close  to  Crete,"  but  have  no  special 
hankering  for  Euroclydon. 

LtJXOR,  March  17-20. 
We  first  suspected  the  nearness  of  Egypt 
by  the  changed  yellowish  color  of  the  sea, 
due  to  waters  of  the  Nile.  Then  sails  and 
steamers,  then  the  small  lateen  rigged  craft 
and  light-house  and  low  sandy  land  line. 
Then  the  breakwater  of  the  Suez  Canal, 
and  noble  bronze  figure  of  De  Lesseps. 
Port  Said  is  a  port  only  of  transition — a 
bazaar  of  trinkets,  of  official  registry,  cus- 
toms, clearings,  coaling,  and  rascality  and 
wickedness  generally.  The  coaling  was  a 
noisy  operation,  hundreds  of  Arabs  lifting 
the  huge  beams  from  lighters  to  ship,  up 
which  they  were  to  walk  with  baskets  of 
coal,  singing  as  they  together  strained  at 
the  immense  timbers.  I  fancied  it  might 
have  been  to  such  music  the  slaves  worked 
13 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

at  the  buildings  whose  colossal  ruins  we  are 
looking  at  to-day  in  Upper  and  Lower 
Egypt.  After  lunch  at  Port  Said,  and  a 
rather  easy  and  superficial  Customs  experi- 
ence, we  took  train  for  Cairo. 

It  is  a  huge  melange — an  ecumenical 
potpourri  —  a  huddle  of  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  and  the  first  and  last  of  civilization. 
A  bicycle  and  an  automobile  go  whizzing 
by  a  moth-eaten  old  camel  under  its  rock- 
ing rider  who  might  be  Adoni-bezek  or 
Ishmael.  Hundreds  of  camels  file  through 
the  street  under  loads  of  grass,  vegetables, 
or  earth,  and  little  asses  patter  along  quite 
invisible  under  their  burden  of  rushes  or 
sugar-cane.  The  sight  of  a  sheikh  or  other 
big-body  in  flowing  robes — sitting  far  back 
on  a  little  donkey  and  quite  submerging 
him — is  funny  enough.  It  looks  like  a 
full-blown  old  lady  on  a  hobby-horse.  It 
feels  good  to  be  in  a  high-ceiled  room  and 
14 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND  PALESTINE 

old-fashioned  beds  after  two  weeks  of  state- 
rooms, "  cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined."" 

Our  first  day  was  a  fourteen-mile  donkey 
ride  (after  the  steamer  ride  on  the  Nile)  to 
old  Memphis  and  Sakkhara,  the  Nekropolis 
or  City  of  the  Dead.  It  was  my  first  don- 
key ride  and  was  most  entertaining.  "Ver' 
good  donkey — Ver"*  good  shantleman — Good 
shantleman  gif  good  backsheesh  !  Donkey 
he  name  Mackkinley  !  Good  backsheesh ! " 
Mackkinley  stumbled  with  me  three  times, 
but  I  took  no  cropper,  though  two  ladies 
and  three  men  had  pretty  serious  tumbles. 
The  two  granite  figures  of  Rameses  II., 
thirty-two  and  forty-five  feet  or  more  tall, 
were  our  first  sight  of  the  old  Egyptian  co- 
lossal sculpture.  They  are  on  the  edge  of 
what  was  once  the  Lake  of  the  Dead,  across 
which  the  dead  were  ferried  to  their  "  de- 
voted city  "  on  the  rocky  plateau  high  above 
the  highest  reach  of  the  Nile.  Then  for  a 
15 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

couple  of  miles  more  we  bumped  our  don- 
key way,  all  the  time  on  dykes  or  through 
narrow  foot-paths,  to  the  Tombs  in  the 
desert. 

The  Egyptian  villages  through  which  we 
passed  were  pathetic  affairs,  looking  like  a 
collection  of  different  sized  gray  mud  blocks. 
They  are  made  of  sun-dried  mud  bricks. 
The  houses  have  mud  floors,  and  practically 
no  windows.  They  swarm  with  flies  and 
fleas,  and  every  other  skin  game.  Dogs  and 
goats  and  kids  roam  in  and  out.  The  little 
children's  eyes  are  black  with  flies  crawling 
on  the  edges  of  their  lids.  They  say  that 
eyes  too  bright  and  clean  would  attract  the 
bad  spell  of  the  Evil  Eye.  Though  it  is  also 
due,  doubtless,  to  "  Kismet,"  flies  and  eyes 
fatally  rhyme.  Again  and  again  I  saw  blind 
eyes,  and  few  of  the  grown-up  children  open 
their  eyes  fairly.  The  women  work  like 
slaves.  They  carry  the  huge  stone  jar  full 
i6 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

of  water  on  their  heads,  or  the  baby  on  their 
shoulder,  and  walk  with  their  load  while 
their  husbands  ride  the  donkey.  Wife  beat- 
ing is  the  unwi'itten  law  of  Egj'pt.  Life  is 
the  closest  struggle,  with  no  alleviation  of 
books,  pictures,  education,  society,  music, 
science,  religion  in  any  true  sense.  It  is 
practical  stagnation  on  the  lowest  levels, 
with  no  uplift  or  outlook  offered  by  Ma- 
hommedanism.  The  United  Presbyterian 
Mission  is  doing  a  heroic  and  successful 
work,  having  over  6,500  church  members, 
and  14,800  children  in  religious  schools. 
This  offers  a  little  horizon.  Some  of  the 
missionaries  have  called  on  us,  and  Dr.  Wil- 
ton Merle  Smith  and  I  are  to  speak  at  a 
gathering  of  their  forces  next  Friday  even- 
ing in  Cairo. 

The  Nekropolis,  on  the  road  to  which  I 
saw  the  villages  that  started  the  last  train 
of  thought,    is  a  stretch  of  high  and  dry 
17 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

rock  and  sand,  perhaps  fifteen  miles  long, 
and  one  to  four  miles  broad.  From  Mem- 
phis and  beyond  it  stretches  to  Gizeh  and 
Cairo  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Nile,  and  con- 
tains every  kind  of  tomb,  from  the  rocky 
niche  or  loosely  stoned  graves  of  the  peasant 
to  the  gigantic  Pyramid  of  Cheops.  No 
nation  of  antiquity  has  had  so  strong  and 
definite  and  even  detailed  a  conviction  and 
conception  of  the  future  life  as  the  Egyp- 
tians. The  Indian  of  our  land  buried 
hatchet  and  bow  and  aiTow,  blanket  and 
pipe,  and  even  horse,  with  their  dead  broth- 
er's body  to  equip  his  spirit  for  his  new 
"  adventures,  brave  and  free."  But  this  is 
rudimentary,  or  rather  vestigial,  compared 
with  the  Egyptians,  for  not  only  were  all 
sorts  of  life's  tools  buried  with  his  age-last- 
ing mummy,  but  his  mausoleum  or  "  Mas- 
taba"  was  a  large  chambered  house,  with 
every  scene  of  his  life's  activities  sculptured 
i8 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

on  the  walls.  Every  chapter  of  life  from 
boyhood  to  manhood  is  depicted,  and,  by  a 
subtle  magic,  a  spiritual  alchemy  furnishes 
him  with  all  he  needs  for  the  happy  absorp- 
tions of  the  next  life.  I  believe  we  could 
most  profitably  add  some  of  their  pictures 
to  our  setting  of  death.  Very  little  of  the 
healthy,  happy  virility  of  their  ideas  is  ex- 
plicitly embodied  in  our  literature,  our 
poetry,  hymnology,  and  conventional  con- 
versation about  the  next  life.  Apocalyptic 
visions  of  peace  and  painlessness  ought  to 
ba  too  negative  to  satisfy  our  full  orbed, 
red-blooded  human  hopes.  The  immense 
vitality  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  His  con- 
stantly comparing  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
to  those  engrossments  of  our  daily  life 
which  are  its  chief  stress  and  daily  strain, 
are  a  fine  vindication  of  the  old  Egyptian's 
forecasts,  and  splendidly  authenticate  our 
energetic  hopes. 

ig 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

So  far  I  have  seen  no  picture  of  their 
building  operations,  no  sign  of  the  ropes, 
wedges,  rafts,  and  sweating  thousands  by 
which  these  colossal  shrines  and  temples 
were  made.  There  are  plenty  of  reliefs 
which  show  servants  butchering,  and  carving, 
and  cooking,  ploughing,  planting  and  reap- 
ing, rowing  galleys  and  fighting,  shaping 
timbers  and  building  ships^  but,  so  far, 
no  trace  of  the  quarrying  and  transporting 
and  erecting  of  these  incredible  monoliths. 
Did  they  want  it  to  be  a  secret  or  was 
it  too  common-place  ?  There  may  be  signs 
I  shall  yet  see.  I  am  curious.  Four 
thousand  five  hundi'ed  years  ago,  cen- 
turies before  Moses,  a  most  complex  and 
highly  variegated  civilization  existed,  pict- 
ured before  us  now  to  the  last  item,  and 
yet  we  have  been  told  that  Moses  could  not 
write. 

One  thing  is  quite  clear  to  my  mind  about 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

the  enormous  stones  that  are  in  the  Nekrop- 
olis,  and  that  is  that  they  were  floated  on 
rafts  from  the  quarries  in  the  high  rock  ridge 
on  the  east  of  the  Nile  valley  to  this  plateau 
of  the  Nekropolis  on  the  west  bank.  The 
whole  valley  was  then  inundated  from  bar- 
rier to  barrier,  and  for  three  or  four  months 
the  tillers  of  the  soil  had  nothing  to  do. 
These,  with  the  slaves  (there  were  4,000,000 
slaves  where  we  are  now  at  Thebes),  could 
do  any  amount  of  rowing  and  hauling.  It  is 
thought,  too,  that  the  monoliths  were  raised 
by  a  system  of  locks  in  artificial  canals, 
floated  up  to  one  level  after  another,  and 
then  stood  at  last  on  end  by  slow  prying 
and  building  imder  of  embankment  or  pile 
of  earth  and  small  stone.  But  "  they  say  " 
and  "it  is  thought "  do  not  tell  the  story, 
and  I  would  give  good  backsheesh  to  know 
how  in  the  tombs  of  the  Sacred  Bulls,  those 
monster  sarcophagi  for  the  mummied  sacred 

21 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

beasts  were  moved  and  placed  in  their 
chambers,  sarcophagi  of  black  or  red  granite, 
thirteen  feet  long,  seven  feet  wide,  and  eleven 
feet  high. 

Owing  to  some  strange  chance  these  sub- 
terranean chambers  were  unknown  to  the 
civilized  world  since  they  were  closed  3,750 
years  ago.  Mariette,  Avho  visited  them  in 
1851,  to  whom  we  owe  a  great  Egyptian 
debt,  found  one  tomb  in  its  original  condi- 
tion, where  the  embalmed  bulls  had  lain  for 
thirty-seven  centuries,  even  to  a  footprint  in 
the  sand,  and  the  finger-marks  of  the  Egyp- 
tian who  had  put  the  last  stone  in  the  wall 
to  conceal  the  doorway.  The  temperature 
in  these  chambers  is  seventy -nine  degrees  the 
year  around. 

The  steep  pyramid  of  Sakkhara,  near  by, 
is  a  series  of  these  mastabas,  built  on  the  top 
of  each  other  like  a  pyramid  of  blocks.  It 
is  impossible  to  realize  how  old  all  this  is. 


■:v.;^^^ 


ENTRANCE     TO    THE     TOMB    OF    SKTI     I., 
THEBES-NECROPOLIS 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

The  mind  flags  as  it  tries  to  think  back  and 
get  these  old  builders  and  fighters,  sailors 
and  shepherds,  lovers  and  haters  again  in 
"  the  warm  precincts  of  the  cheerful  day." 
And  yet  to-day  there  is  a  little  animal,  an 
Ascidian,  in  the  mud  of  Chesapeake  Bay, 
that  antedates  them  all,  and  was  alive  and 
flourishing  before  even  the  mountains  were 
reared  from  which  old  Rameses  and  Seti 
quarried  their  monuments. 

One  thought  occurs  to  me  that  I  must 
not  forget,  that,  whatever  the  lives  of  the  old 
Egyptians  may  have  been,  there  is  a  noble 
austerity,  a  dignity  and  purity  about  their 
wall-pictures  and  statues  that  should  put 
the  Roman  and  the  Greek  to  the  blush.  It 
was  sunset  over  the  Libyan  Desert  as  we 
sailed  home  on  the  Nile,  the  great  rock 
barriers  on  the  east  between  the  Nile  Val- 
ley and  the  Arabian  Desert  gleaming  in 
rose  and  violet  and  old  gold,  and  on  the 
23 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

horizon  line  to  the  west  on  the  edge  of  the 
Libyan  Desert  the  pyramids  sharply  out- 
lined against  the  glowing  sky.  At  the  edge 
of  the  river  boats  were  moored  with  lateen 
sails  snugly  furled  on  the  slender  yards. 
Buffaloes  and  sheep  were  drinking,  men  and 
women  and  children  knee  deep  in  the  water 
washing  themselves,  and  filling  their  water- 
jars  and  goat-skins.  The  sakkieh  is  still 
working,  a  clumsy  wheel  with  its  chain  of 
ropes  and  water  jars  worked  by  a  blindfold 
bullock  in  his  monotonous  round.  A  chain 
that  reaches  do^vn  to  the  river  carries  the 
water  to  the  top  of  the  bank,  pouring  it  into 
a  tank  from  which  it  runs  through  its  ap- 
pointed channels  to  irrigate  the  soil.  The 
shadoof  is  a  series  of  tanks  six  or  eight  feet 
above  each  other,  each  filled  by  a  man  with 
a  little  well-sweep  and  bucket  that  dips  the 
water  from  the  river  or  the  tank  below  him 
to  fill  the  tank  into  which  the  man  above 
24 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

him  dips.  Thousands  of  bronzed  figures 
with  only  a  waist-cloth  work  in  this  way — 
lifting  a  bucket  at  a  time  to  keep  the  fields 
above  and  the  garden  patches  from  being 
burned  up  by  the  fierce  sun.  Wherever  the 
river  comes  everything  lives.  Where  it 
does  not  come  is  death.  No  one  who  has 
been  in  Egypt  can  fail  to  appreciate  the  old 
marble  Nilus  in  the  Vatican  with  its  swarm- 
ing life.  There  are  mightier  rivers,  but 
none  that  has  so  been  identified  with  a  na- 
tion's life,  the  very  source  and  spring  of  its 
characteristic  being.  It  was  the  Nile  that 
by  its  tremendous  inundations  made  the 
Egyptians  a  nation  of  civil  engineers;  that 
by  the  necessity  of  knowing  the  time  from 
year  to  year  of  its  rise  forced  them  to  tell 
time  by  the  stars  and  become  a  nation  of  as- 
tronomers ;  that  by  its  annual  sweeping 
away  of  all  boundaries  turned  the  people 
into  geometers  and  surveyors,  and  that  by 
25 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

the  inevitable  differences  concerning  land- 
marks and  records  compelled  the  existence 
of  a  body  of  lawyers  and  the  erection  of  a 
capable  and  authoritative  judiciary.  Its 
life-giving  power  has  been  immensely  aug- 
mented by  the  dams  and  barriers  and  stor- 
age reservou's  which  the  Anglo-Egyptian 
Government  has  built.  Still  greater  plans 
are  in  hand,  and  I  understand  that  Philae 
will  soon  be  submerged  and  as  an  end  for 
an  archaeological  pilgrimage,  quite  disquali- 
fied by  the  great  lake  in  which  it  will  find 
itself. 

It  looked  odd  as  we  were  sailing  home  to 
see  men  on  little  bars  or  mud  islands  in 
the  river  digging  holes  and  planting  seeds  ; 
but  they  knew  what  they  were  about.  The 
river  is  already  getting  lower,  and  in  six  or 
eight  weeks  there  will  be.  a  crop  of  water- 
melons for  them.  What  legal  right  to  that 
exact  spot  of  river  bottom  and  Nile  deposit 
26 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

those  particular  men  had  deponent  sayeth 
not. 

The  next  morning  bright  and  early  we 
were  galloping  over  the  bridge,  past  the 
endless  line  of  camels  and  donkeys  and  bur- 
den-bearers coming  into  the  city  with  their 
green  stuff  and  wares,  past  the  Gizeh  Mu- 
seum and  along  the  high-road  straight  as 
an  arrow  and  in  the  shade  of  double  roA\s 
of  acacia-trees  for  eight  miles  to  the  great 
Pyramids  and  the  Sphinx.  The  north 
wind  was  as  cool  as  though  it  were  a  "  sea 
turn'"  in  New  England,  though  in  the  sun 
and  out  of  the  breeze  it  was  scorchingly 
hot.  Greater  and  greater  the  pyramids 
grew,  and  on  the  last  bit  of  level  gi'een  be- 
fore you  climb  the  rocky  plateau  on  which 
the  graves  of  the  mighty  dead  had  won  such 
distinction,  a  golf-course  has  been  laid  out 
and  its  direction  flags  were  flying,  and  a 
black  caddie  dawdling  along  with  a  bag  of 
27 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

clubs.  It  was  too  much,  and  we  resolutely 
forgot  it,  and  pushed  the  hands  of  the  clock 
back.  The  bargaining  with  the  Arabs  to 
lend  their  helping  hands  for  the  climb  was 
soon  over,  and  up  we  went.  Go  up-stairs 
at  home  four  steps  at  a  time,  and  you  will 
get  fair  preliminary  practice.  A  third 
Arab,  after  we  had  gone  up  twenty  or  thirty 
steps,  appeared  from  nowhere  and  began  to 
push  me.  It  was  an  insult  to  my  spirit, 
and  an  assault  upon  my  purse,  and  I  dis- 
missed him  with  some  difficulty,  but  at  last 
with  definiteness.  He  attached  himself 
soon  to  someone  else.  My  men  soon  began 
to  puff  and  wheeze,  though  they  had  not 
pulled  me  twenty  pounds  weight  of  pull.  I 
scorned  to  sit  down.  They  were  theatrical 
and  bulling  the  market.  I  promptly  started 
up  alone,  and  they  were  at  once  with  me. 
Twice  more  they  begged  me  to  sit  down 
and  twice  I  started  off  alone.  Either  they 
28 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

are  great  artificial  puffers  and  blowers  or 
else  preaching  is  better  for  the  lungs  than 
climbing  the  pyramids.  One  of  them  told 
me  he  was  Mark  Twain's  friend,  and  would 
like  to  nm  down  the  pyramid  we  were  on 
and  up  the  next  and  back  again  in  ten  min- 
utes. I  looked  at  him  with  horror,  saying 
it  would  be  murder  for  a  man  with  such 
lungs  as  his,  who  wanted  to  rest  three  times 
coming  up,  to  attempt  such  a  mad  feat,  and 
so  I  strangled  him  with  his  own  turban. 
The  Arabs  are  really  a  great  nuisance. 
When  we  wanted  to  be  still,  and  abandon 
ourselves  to  the  pleasures  of  sight  and  re- 
flection in  a  spot  so  unique,  in  suiTOund- 
ings  so  unparalleled,  we  could  barely  get  a 
moment  free  from  their  importunities  con- 
cerning scarabs,  and  necklaces,  and  sungods, 
and  pieces  of  mummies,  and  little  Rameses 
in  stone,  and  a  dozen  other  impertinences. 
You  can  get  rid  of  them  by  certain  reso- 
29 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

luteness,  and  also  by  certain  phrases,  but  it 
costs  a  good  deal  of  effort  and  takes  a  good 
deal  of  time,  and  alas,  it  is  often  no  more 
final  than  brushing  away  flies — the  other 
great  modern  Egyptian  plague. 

From  the  Pyramid  how  plainly  you 
see  what  Egypt  is — a  shining  stream  of 
water  flanked  by  two  broad,  yet  how  nar- 
row, bands  of  green,  and  then  the  desert 
waste  stretching  interminably  east  and 
west.  It  is  a  vast  garment  of  yellow-brown 
with  a  stripe  of  green  running  through  it, 
and  down  the  stripe  of  green  a  silver  thread. 
How  well  the  old  Egyptians  knew  it  you  see 
a  thousand  times  in  their  picture-writing 
which  puts  the  symbols  of  the  Nile  and  life 
and  happiness  constantly  together.  How 
slight  the  stream,  how  vast  the  desert,  how 
short  the  day,  how  endless  the  night,  how 
brief  is  life,  how  silent  and  inexorable  and 
certain  is  death !  Is  this  not  the  voiceless 
30 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

meaning  of  the  Sphinx,  of  all  the  creations 
of  Egyptian  thought  the  most  mysterious 
and  fascinating  as  it  lies  at  the  portal  of 
the  gi'eat  Pyramid,  guarding  the  dead,  with 
its  steadfast  eyes  fixed  on  the  slender  strip 
of  green  where  the  river  runs,  and  men  live 
out  their  little  lives  ?  The  sun  sets  behind 
it  over  the  tawny  rocks  where  sleep  the 
countless  dead,  but  it  looks  ever  eastward 
whence  new  light  and  life  are  rising.  Its 
silence  is  not  of  despair,  for  in  the  tombs 
it  guards  men  are  proving  their  dauntless 
courage  and  picturing  their  deathless  hopes. 
There  they  have  written  their  books,  not  of 
memory  but  of  prophecy — not  alone  the 
Books  of  the  Dead,  but  of  the  Living. 
Books  of  the  Portals  into  the  other  life — 
of  the  doings  and  goings  of  the  other  world. 
One  could  spend  a  life-time  over  the  walls 
of  the  tomb  of  Seti  I.,  and  ever  glory,  not  in 
the  beauty  and  delicacy  of  the  craftsman''s 
31 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

art,  the  exquisiteness  of  high  and  low  rehef, 
the  endlessness  of  historic  recordings  and 
recountings,  the  freshness  of  the  age-old 
coloring,  but,  despite  all  allowance  for 
superb  pride  and  thoughtless  cruelty  of  im- 
perial power,  in  the  nobility  of  the  soul's 
march  with  the  Sun  God  into  the  worlds 
beyond  —  through  death  and  darkness  — 
with  the  symbols  of  truth  and  happiness 
and  life. 

This  morning  has  seemed  like  a  dream,  so 
much  has  flashed  and  flamed  into  the  mind 
from  the  gray  old  past.  We  breakfasted  at 
5,30  and  walked  through  our  garden  in 
Luxor,  under  palms,  and  Pride  of  India, 
and  tamarisks,  to  the  boat-landing.  The 
mountains  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river 
were  in  the  sunlight  while  we  were  in  the 
cool  shade.  A  few  moments  and  we  had 
crossed  the  river,  in  a  babel  of  noises,  as  the 
donkey  drivers  waded  out  to  meet  us  and 
32 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

carried  us  ashore  on  their  shoulders,  and  set 
us  down  each  on  his  own  beast.  The  ride 
was  dehghtful  for  a  half  hour  in  the  cool 
morning  to  the  Temple  of  Seti  I.  Then  up 
the  desolate  valley  we  rode  for  an  hour, 
winding  through  the  very  home  of  death — 
with  never  a  bush  or  a  tree  or  a  bird  in 
sight ;  now  in  the  glare  of  a  pitiless  sun, 
and  now  turning  into  the  grateful  shadow, 
till  we  reached  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings. 
Into  three  of  them  we  went — the  tombs  of 
Rameses  IV.,  and  Rameses  VI.,  and  Seti  I. 
We  saw  the  tomb  of  Amenophis,  discovered 
last  year,  in  which  everything  is  as  it  was 
when  it  was  sealed  when  the  vast  retinue  of 
the  dead  turned  again  home  through  the 
winding  valley  we  had  been  threading. 
Next  year  anyone  can  see  the  sarcophagus 
and  the  royal  mummy,  and  the  sacrificial 
tables,  and  the  gold  and  jewels,  but  not 
now.  We  tried  every  way  to  induce  the 
33 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

Dragoman,  El-Hashim — and  a  fine  old  man 
he  is — to  find  a  way  for  us  to  get  in,  but  he 
said  there  was  no  way,  and  the  inducements 
were  such  that  the  sincerity  of  his  refusal 
was  not  to  be  doubted.  The  tombs  of  but 
110  out  of  334  kings  have  been  discovered. 
What  discoveries  are  yet  to  be  made  !  Then 
came  the  steepest  chmb  on  foot,  in  hot, 
dusty  desolation,  over  the  highest  part  of 
the  mountain,  a  ride  along  its  height,  and 
a  shuffle  and  scramble  down  on  foot  over 
broken  pottery,  stones,  bricks,  flints,  till 
with  another  ride  we  reached  the  Temple  of 
Queen  Hatshepsu,  rising  terrace  after  ter- 
race until  the  last  courts  and  sanctuaries 
were  in  the  mountain  itself.  This  and  all 
the  other  temples  have  been  used  by  the 
Christians  in  early  times.  Then  we  rode  to 
the  Ramesseum,  where  everything  colossal 
that  the  mind  can  conceive  was  done  by  the 
mighty  Rameses  II.  to  perpetuate  his  mem- 
34 


THE    RAMESSEUM 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

ory.  The  impressions  of  these  stupendous 
ruins  cannot  be  recorded.  His  statue,  prone 
and  broken,  is  the  hugest  thing  of  the 
kind  in  the  world.  It  is  of  highly  polished 
red  granite.  The  ear  is  three  and  a  half 
feet  long,  the  face  six  and  three-quarters 
feet  wide,  the  breast,  from  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  twenty -three  and  a  third  feet, 
the  height  fifty-seven  feet,  and  the  weight 
over  2,000,000  pounds.  The  Greek  and 
Roman  travellers  wondered  just  as  we  do, 
and  the  rows  of  caryatids,  in  the  form  of 
Horus,  but  with  the  head  and  cartouche 
(or  monogram)  of  Rameses  were  described 
by  Diodorus. 

Then  we  went  to  the  Pavilion  and  Temple 
of  Rameses  III.  ;  noble  beyond  words,  add- 
ed to,  and  in  some  places  rebuilt,  by  the 
Romans,  with  a  distinct  portion  long  used 
by  the  Christians.  Ten  minutes  away  are 
the  Colossi  of  Memnon,  visible  from  every 
35 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

direction,  rising  out  of  a  field  of  wheat.  It 
is  hard  to  reahze  that  they  were  once  a  part 
of  the  distant  group  of  temples,  but  this 
was  "  hundred-gated  Thebes,""  on  both  banks 
of  the  river,  built  on  three  islands  beside, 
famous  through  all  the  world,  for  centuries 
the  chosen  city  of  the  Pharaohs,  into  which 
the  countless  treasures  of  their  plunder  and 
tribute  flowed,  the  city  of  Ammon.  The 
northern  of  these  Colossi  is  the  musical 
statue  of  Memnon.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  some  sound  was  given  as  the 
warm  rays  of  the  sun  touched  the  hard 
resonant  stone  chilled  from  the  cold  night. 
In  Sinai  and  Assuan  and  the  Pyrenees  the 
same  phenomenon  has  been  observed.  Strabo 
and  Juvenal  and  many  another  writer  has 
commented  upon  it.  Since  Septimius  Sev- 
erus  attempted  to  repair  it  with  five  courses 
of  sandstone  blocks  no  sound  has  been 
heard.  The  statues  are  of  seated  figures  of 
36 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

Amenhotep  III.,  that  with  the  original 
crowns  were  sixty-nine  feet  high,  now  about 
sixty-four  feet,  and  weight  1,175  tons  each. 
Such  a  day  seems  too  much  for  the  mind,  and 
would  be  so  if  conscientiousness  concerning 
detail  were  binding,  but  the  picture  is  con- 
tinuous, and  is  ever  to  be  recalled,  "  flashing 
upon  the  inwai-d  eye,  which  is  the  bliss  of 
solitude." 

Karxak,  March  19. 
I  can  never  hear  the  word  again  without 
a  strange  mixture  of  feeling — resulting  from 
the  debased  and  depressing  surroundings, 
the  dust  and  dirt  and  heat,  the  squalor  and 
clamor  and  confusion  that  touch  and  even 
enter  the  most  vast  and  stupendous  of 
human  temples.  Under  the  mud  houses  of 
the  present-day  Egyptians,  deep  in  ashes, 
broken  pots,  bones  and  rubbish,  what  homes 
of  the  gods  may  yet  be  in  darkness  ? 
Through  the  bare  yards  and  goat  pens  of 
37 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

the  villagers  runs  one  of  the  long  lines  of 
colossal  rams  that  marked  the  royal  road 
connecting  the  Temple  of  Karnak  with  the 
mile-distant  Luxor.  One  of  the  stone 
figures  is  at  the  corner  of  where  two  mud 
walls  meet.  From  the  west  side  of  the 
Temple  of  Ammon  ran  the  avenue  across 
the  present  Nile — which  then  ran  east  of 
Karnak — five  miles  westward  to  meet  the 
temples  that  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  moun- 
tains where  were  the  royal  tombs,  an  avenue 
five  miles  long,  enclosed  by  two  rows  of 
colossal  rams  and  sphinxes.  North  and  east, 
as  well,  stretched  those  monumental  avenues, 
from  the  huge  Pylons  or  triumphal  arches 
that  were  like  outer  guards  or  wards  of  the 
temple.  The  ruins  at  Baal-bec  may  be  more 
stupendous,  though  I  can  hardly  conceive  it, 
but  no  other  building  in  the  world  compares 
with  the  Temple  of  Ammon  in  extent.  It 
grew  for  ages,  each  successor  to  the  throne 
38 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

of  Egypt  adding  his  best  endeavor  to  rival 
and  sui'pass  in  greatness  and  glory  the 
additions  of  his  predecessors,  until  the 
"  Throne  of  the  world,"  which  it  came  to  be 
called,  was  not  grandiloquent.  From  the 
IVIiddle  Empire,  2200  b.  c,  to  the  time  of  the 
Ptolomies,  two  thousand  years  later,  nearly 
every  Pharaoh  dreamed  his  wider,  loftier 
dream  of  beauty,  and  embodied  it.  Pylons, 
courts — courts  so  vast  that  several  whole 
temples  are  included  in  them — chapels, 
sanctuaries,  colonnaded  halls,  obelisks,  rows 
of  giant  kings,  the  great  Hypostyle  Hall, 
sacred  lakes,  avenues  of  sphinxes,  succeed 
each  other  in  every  direction.  The  great 
Hypostyle  Hall  is  beyond  words.  Vaster 
than  Notre  Dame,  it  is  a  forest  of  stone 
pillars,  pillars  as  large  in  diameter  as  the 
Column  Vendome  in  Paris;  a  hundred  and 
thirty-four  of  them  there  are,  arranged  in 
sixteen  rows,  and  supporting  the  stone  roof, 
39 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

all  of  them  the  clustered  papyrus  column, 
some  with  papyrus  bead  capital,  and  some 
the  calyx  or  flowering  capital.  The  central 
rows  are  thirty  feet  higher  than  the  others — 
making  a  clerestory  with  side  windows,  filling 
the  whole  vast  building  with  light,  a  distinct 
cathedral  effect  thousands  of  years  before 
the  builders  of  Europe  made  a  charcoal 
sketch.  And  this  stupendous  temple  is  but 
one  of  a  score  of  others,  great  and  small, 
grouped  closely,  with  walls  separated  only 
by  courts  filled  with  colossal  figures  and 
obelisks,  or  linked  by  avenues  flanked  by 
sphinxes  and  rams  in  countless  succession. 
Everywhere  on  temple  walls,  pylons  and 
pillars,  are  the  figures  in  high  and  low  relief 
of  the  gods  and  the  kings  and  their  trains, 
chronicles  of  their  prayers,  their  victories, 
their  offerings,  records  of  intellectual  imag- 
ination, unwearying  energy  and  titanic 
accomplishment.  Karnak  and  Luxor  are 
40 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

really  one,  and  the  mind  is  fiiint  as  it  seeks 
to  comprehend  the  power  in  the  hand  of 
those  Old  World  kings,  those  mightiest  of 
builders. 

Cairo  is  tinsel  and  tawdriness  after  the 
majesty  of  Thebes,  and  her  most  endm'ing 
works  seem  like  the  painted  flies  and  paste- 
board perspective  of  a  passing  show.  How 
are  the  mighty  fallen  !  I  could  not  help 
thinking  as  I  saw  the  stone  and  stucco 
pedestals  under  the  lions  on  the  great  iron 
bridge  over  the  Nile,  with  what  scorn  under 
their  solenm  fillets  the  old  Egyptian  kings 
would  have  regarded  them.  Old  Cairo  is  a 
bazaar,  its  narrow  lanes  overhung  with  cor- 
nices that  almost  touch,  with  awnings  of 
rugs,  its  balconies,  its  grated  windows 
through  which  secluded  eyes  peep,  its  booths, 
like  mere  vestibules  with  no  windows  or 
doors,  their  owners  sitting  Turk-fashion, 
smoking,  haggling,  finally  demanding  your 
41 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

"last  price,"  and  often  following  you  far 
along  the  way ;  camels,  donkeys,  dogs, 
water-sellers  with  clanging  brass  cups,  ven- 
ders of  everything,  with  cries  to  match, 
whips  cracking  like  torpedoes;  Nubians, 
Abyssinians,  Greeks,  Copts,  Arabs,  veiled 
women  in  black  silk  balloons  and  high- 
heeled  slippers,  fellahin  women  with  no  veils 
but  wdth  skins  tattooed,  and  babies  on  their 
backs  ;  rug-men  and  scarab  sellers,  jewellers 
and  brass  workers  dragging  you  into  their 
dens ;  beggars,  cripples,  children  crying, 
"  Backsheesh  '"* —  O,  the  streets  of  Cairo  ! 
The  Mouski  Bazaar  no  one  who  has  seen 
can  ever  forget. 

The  hotels  are  unsurpassed,  but  I  shall 
be  glad  to  be  off  for  the  Holy  Land,  and 
its  tent  life  in  the  open.  The  heavens  at 
night  are  glorious,  and  I  am  again  a  star- 
worshipper.  We  are  to  see  the  Dervishes 
to-mon-ow,  but  I  will  send  this  to-night 
42 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

and  begin  my  next  epistle  dancing  and 
howling.  Greetings  to  you  all  from  the 
President  to  Quartus. 

Faithfully  yours, 
(Signed)        Maltbie  D.  Babcock. 


43 


JoppA,  March  25,  1901. 

I  sent  off  my  letter  just  as  we  were  going 
to  see  the  Dervishes.  It  was  a  pathetic  af- 
fair. The  setting  was  fine — a  court  with  a 
raised  stone  platform  20  x  30  feet  square, 
and  a  foot  high,  covered  with  matting  and 
rugs,  and  all  under  a  roof  of  grape-vines  in 
the  first  green  leaf;  a  flute  with  a  seven- 
note  scale  kept  wailing  in  doleful  minor  and 
oddest  Arabic  intervals.  A  singer  beside 
him  seemed  to  please  the  native  listeners, 
but  it  was  anything  but  agreeable  to  us, 
and  the  man's  expression  belonged  to  a 
sharp  tooth-ache,  getting  steadily  worse  un- 
til the  song  ended.  Then  the  old  Sheikh 
and  a  dozen  men  came  on  the  platform  and 
proceeded  to  vex  the  air  with  guttm'als  and 
44 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

groans,  waving  their  bodies  side-ways  and 
back  and  forth,  faster  and  faster,  so  long 
and  wearily  to  us  that  before  they  reached 
the  stage  of  fits  which  they  evidently  cov- 
eted and  often  accomplished,  we  packed  off. 
It  was  an  exhibition  of  lost  force,  or  wasted 
energy.  A  little  boy  sat  through  it  all 
beside  the  leader,  with  forty  flies  crawling 
over  his  face,  and  eyes,  and  nose,  and 
mouth,  and  no  one  would  lift  a  finger  to 
drive  them  away,  or  seek  to  counteract 
the  contagion  that  spreads  its  blight  of 
blindness  on  every  side.  I  cannot  discover 
the  element  of  progress  in  Mohammedanism, 
without  which  no  religion  can  eventually 
survive. 

On  the  Island  of  Rhoda,  where  they 
showed  us  the  place  where  the  baby  Moses 
was  found  in  his  little  boat  in  the  rushes, 
we  saw  a  Nilometer  used  by  the  early  Chris- 
tians and  the  Kopts,  and  now  by  the 
45 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

Tui'ks.  It  is  a  deep  stone  chamber  into 
which  the  river  flows,  the  annual  rise  of 
water  being  measured  by  a  graduated  stone 
column.  Then  through  the  narrow  streets, 
in  which  we  were  far  more  objects  of  curi- 
osity than  the  natives,  we  rode  to  the  old 
Koptic  Church,  in  which  Christian  men  have 
worshipped  for  a  thousand  years.  Its  pict- 
ures seemed  most  homelike,  the  first  Chris- 
tian emblems  we  have  seen  for  a  long  time 
— pictures  of  the  Holy  Family  and  Apostles 
that  were  plainly  earlier  than  Cimabue  and 
Giotto,  Early  the  next  morning  we  took 
the  train  to  Alexandria,  always  happy  in 
our  travelling  because  of  the  special  cars  we 
have,  which  free  us  from  anxiety,  and  keep 
us  together  for  lunches,  and  singing,  and 
visiting  generally.  Pompey"'s  pillar,  the 
site  where  the  old  Pharos  stood,  and  the 
base  of  the  Cleopatra  needles  that  Avent  to 
London  and  New  York,  were  about  all  that 
46 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

was  interesting  in  this  comparatively  mod- 
ern-looking city.  The  sea  view  was  a  con- 
stant delight.  The  steamer  we  took  be- 
longed to  the  Khedivial  Mail  Line,  and  had 
been  planned  for  the  P.  &  O.  Line,  but  was 
bought  on  the  stocks  by  the  Khedive  for 
his  private  yacht,  and  finally  sold  to  the 
present  company.  The  Mediterranean  was 
smooth  as  a  mill-pond  for  us.  We  reached 
Port  Said  nine  o'clock  Sunday  morning,  and 
spent  the  day  on  board,  waiting  for  the 
mail  by  railroad  from  Cairo  and  the  East, 
leaving  at  sundown.  We  had  church  ser- 
vice at  eleven  o''clock,  the  after-deck  being 
draped  on  every  side  with  flags,  the  pulpit 
covered  with  the  American  and  English 
flags,  and  the  piano  moved  out.  Our  male 
quartet  sang,  and  the  Rev.  George  Curtis 
of  Bloomfield  preached.  The  captain,  chief 
engineer,  and  other  officers,  were  enthusias- 
tic over  everything,  and  could  not  have 
47 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

enough  of  the  singing,  which  went  on 
through  parts  of  the  afternoon  and  evening. 
At  Joppa  we  had  the  most  conspicuous 
blessing  of  our  trip  in  a  smooth  sea  that 
made  our  landing  swift  and  easy.  There 
is  no  harbor  at  all  except  for  small  boats 
back  of  a  broken-tooth  ledge  of  rocks,  with 
an  opening  through  which,  in  fair  weather, 
passengers  are  taken  in  good-sized  yawls. 
In  rough  water  the  risk  is  great,  and 
often  no  passengers  are  landed  at  all,  but 
carried  on  to  Beyrout. 

In  Joppa,  after  lunch,  we  picked  out  our 
horses,  bought  our  saddle-bags,  and  re-ar- 
ranged our  baggage.  We  tried  our  new 
mounts  by  riding  to  the  house  of  Simon  the 
Tanner,  and  the  house  and  tomb  of  Tabi- 
tha.  They  may  be  fairly  well  identified, 
and  they  may  not  be.  I  try  to  be  porous 
and  only  reasonably  susceptible,  shunning 
the  extremes  of  credulity  and  scepticism. 
48 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

At  any  rate,  Simon's  reputed  house  is  by 
the  seaside,  and  I  saw  a  man  sound  asleep 
on  an  elevated  portico  platform,  and  was 
well  aware  of  a  tannery  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. At  7.30  we  were  off  on  the  road  to 
Jerusalem.  Our  camp  equipment  had  gone 
hours  earlier.  Out  of  Joppa  we  rode  across 
the  Plains  of  Philistia,  the  southern  end 
of  the  Plain  of  Sharon.  It  was  a  gar- 
den, green  with  wheat  fields  and  orchards 
of  oranges,  lemons,  apricots,  and  olives. 
Across  the  plains  the  foot-hills  grew  into 
the  Shephelah,  or  the  Hill  Country,  and 
back  of  that  rose  the  purple  ridge  of  the 
Judean  Mountains.  South  of  us  was  the 
country  of  the  Philistines,  with  their  cities 
of  Gath,  Ekron,  Ashdod,  Gaza,  and  Aske- 
lon.  East  were  Beth-dagon,  but  only  tradi- 
tional, and  Lydda,  well  authenticated,  where 
Peter  was  enabled  to  get  the  palsied  ^neas 
on  his  feet.  One  of  the  finest  views  we  had 
49 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

was  when  we  came  to  the  Valley  of  Ajalon. 
We  had  lunch,  and  had  a  siesta  in  the  ruins 
where  one  white  tower  stood,  and  winding 
for  an  hour  or  so,  suddenly  came  upon  the 
vale  pouring  out  like  a  fan  from  the  Pass 
of  Beth-Horon.  Here  Joshua  routed  the 
Philistines,  and  the  same  sun  and  moon 
were  in  evidence  for  us, — the  moon  over  our 
head.  Here  Judas  Maccabaeus,  and  the 
Roman,  and  the  Crusaders  fought  back  and 
forth.  A  steady  climb  until  half-past  four, 
and  our  camp  flashed  in  sight  with  its  tents 
and  flags,  and  five  oVlock  tea!  We  could  not 
keep  from  cheering,  it  looked  so  fine,  a  cir- 
cle of  fifteen  tents  surrounding  a  court  of 
green,  with  a  hundred  mules  and  horses 
picketed  outside.  Tables  were  spread  with 
tea  and  cakes,  which  vanished  like  mist. 
How  good  it  all  tasted  to  our  dry  throats 
and  hungry  stomachs.  Then  an  hour  and 
a  half  went  into  cleaning  up,  writing,  and  a 
50 


^'^\fi^ 


THE    FIRST    CAMP 
BETWEEN    JOPPA    AND    JERUSALEM 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

game  of  baseball.  The  Arabs  were  much 
amused  by  the  game — for  we  ran  bases,  and 
shouted  like  Bashi-Bazouks.  Mr.  Dwight 
Elmendorf  umpired.  The  completeness  of 
the  camp  is  past  praising.  Dr.  Wilton  Merle- 
Smith,  Rev.  George  L.  Curtis,  and  I,  old 
friends,  share  the  same  tent.  It  is  a  white 
wall  tent,  circular,  twenty  feet  in  diameter, 
with  an  extra  roof  or  fly.  The  inside  is  in 
Persian  figures  of  red,  white,  yellow  and 
blue.  Three  cot  beds  with  comfortable 
mattresses,  a  good  sized  table,  with  mirror 
and  candles  and  hand  basins,  rugs  on  the 
ground,  and  hooks  on  tent-pole  rig  us  out 
completely.  To-night  we  found  our  camp 
waiting  for  us  at  Solomon"'s  Pools,  our  bags 
in  our  tents,  the  evening  cup  of  tea  brew- 
ing. The  dinner  at  night  is  an  event ;  six 
courses,  well  cooked,  and  promptly  served, 
and  six  miles  from  a  hotel.  Soup,  roast, 
bird,  salad,  sweets,  and  dessert  with  coffee, 
51 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

make  you  feel  that  the  windows  of  heaven 
have  been  opened  in  Samaritan  famine  time. 
After  dinner  we  have  prayers  and  a  good 
sing,  a  bit  of  letter- writing,  and  a  tumble 
into  bed.  At  5.30  this  morning,  a  din  of 
drums  and  bells,  and  Arab  shouts  distressed 
the  air,  and  we  were  up  for  a  six  ©""clock 
breakfast,  and  off  by  6.45.  Three  and  a 
half  to  four  homV  riding,  and  the  bivouac 
for  two  or  three  hours  for  lunch,  and  the 
same  in  the  afternoon.  Our  camp  was  torn 
to  pieces  over  our  heads,  and  swept  off  the 
face  of  the  earth  at  Latron,  the  reputed 
home  of  the  penitent  thief  (Latro,  a  rob- 
ber). After  a  two  hours'  climb  the  view 
back  across  the  Philistine  plains  and  out  to 
the  Mediterranean  was  as  full  of  color  as  a 
rainbow.  Rocks  and  ridges,  stone  terraces., 
dry  river-beds  were  everywhere,  with  little 
corners  and  bottoms,  wherever  ingenuity  and 
labor  could   triumph,  set  out   with  Avheat, 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

and  olives,  and  figs.  The  Carob  tree  (the 
Prodigal's  husks)  was  occasionally  seen. 
Mizpah  towered  above  us  where  Samuel 
lived  and  gathered  the  people ;  where  he 
met  Saul  and  anointed  him  King  of  Israel, 
first  prophet  and  first  king,  forever  asso- 
ciated with  this  airy  spot,  the  highest  point 
in  Judea.  There  was  doubt  about  the 
identification  of  Kirjath-Jearim  by  which 
we  passed.  The  place  where  the  Ark 
rested  is  probably  in  the  next  southern 
valley.  The  Crusader''s  tradition  is  strong 
that  Ain  Karim,  which  we  saw,  was  the 
birth-place  of  John  the  Baptist.  We 
lunched  in  an  orchard  of  Emmaus,  and 
knew  we  were  not  far  from  Jerusalem. 
Higher  and  higher  we  climbed,  wondering 
why  the  Jews  could  not  have  left  the  Egyp- 
tian and  Assyrian  quarrels  alone,  for  if  they 
had,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  could  have  in- 
duced a  foreign  amiy  to  leave  its  march 
53 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

along  the  maritime  plain  to  chase  up  these 
terrible  defiles,  and  over  such  barren,  track- 
less rocks.  "Their  strength  was  to  stand 
still.""  "  In  quietness  and  confidence  shall 
be  your  strength."  We  did  not  enter 
Jerusalem,  but  skirted  under  its  walls,  and 
past  the  Jaffa  Gate,  and  past  Bethlehem,  to 
the  camp  at  Solomon''s  Pools,  on  our  way  to 
Hebron  to-morrow. 

Oaks  of  Mamre,  Hebron, 
March  28,  190L 

A  four  hour  ride  in  the  sweetest,  coolest 
morning  air,  gradually  warming  to  hot 
noon,  brought  us  to  Hebron.  Some  of  us 
left  the  main  road  for  an  horn*  and  threaded 
om*  way  across  the  battle-field  of  Beth- 
Zacharias,  where  Antiochus  Eupator,  with 
his  huge  Syrian  Army  and  fearsome  squad 
of  elephants,  defeated  Judas  Maccabaeus. 
The  plain  answered  perfectly  to  the  de- 
54 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

mands  of  the  historic  situation,  and  gave 
Professor  Riggs  and  me  the  greatest  pleas- 
ure in  working  over  the  ground  with  the 
maps.  We  travelled  in  the  narrowest  of 
bridle-paths,  with  skylarks  over  our  heads, 
and  wild  flowers  on  every  hand.  Poppies 
and  anemones,  yellow  gorse  and  orchids, 
red  and  blue  lilies,  blue  lobelia  and  chicory, 
and  dozens  of  other  flowers  bloomed  wher- 
ever half  a  chance  was  given  them.  We 
passed  a  dozen  flocks  with  their  shepherds, 
men  were  working  the  fields  ploughing  with 
bent  sticks,  and  most  unscripturally,  for 
they  often  had  an  ass  and  a  bullock  un- 
equally yoked  together.  I  had  an  interest- 
ing talk  with  our  dragoman,  George.  It 
began  by  my  asking  him  about  the  people 
guarding  their  vineyards  and  fields  in  har- 
vest time.  It  led  to  my  speaking  of  a  feel- 
ing of  safety  in  our  camp,  and  he  said  :  "  O, 
of  course.  We  are  brothers,  for  we  are 
55 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

Christians.  Every  servant  in  our  camp  is  a 
Christian.  I  could  not  be  happy  or  safe  if 
they  were  Mohammedans.  Mohammedans 
would  not  think  it  wrong  to  take  anything 
they  dared  from  infidels,  but  we  are  broth- 
ers. You  come  as  strangers  from  America 
to  us,  but  it  is  one  caste,  and  we  treat  you 
as  ourselves."  The  head  dragoman  is  a  con- 
vert of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  of 
England,  and  the  second  is  a  Baptist  con- 
vert. 

Soon  we  came  to  the  vale  of  Eshcol,  and 
sure  enough  every  field  was  filled  with  grape- 
vines, some  of  them  as  big  as  trees.  Figs, 
and  olives,  cherries,  pears,  pomegranates, 
and  quinces,  grow  in  abundance,  and  it  was 
no  wonder  it  seemed  a  very  Paradise  to  the 
men  who  had  been  wandering  for  so  many 
years  in  the  desert. 

Hebron  is  most  interesting.  It  is  a  thou- 
sand feet  higher  tlian  Jerusalem,  and  was  the 
56 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

mountain  which  hardy  old  Caleb  chose, 
who  well  remembered  the  place  he  so  hope- 
fully spied  out  as  a  young  man.  Here  is 
Abraham's  oak,  and  there  is  an  old  tree 
which  is  now  fenced  in,  immense  enough 
and  old  enough  to  have  been  here  a  thou- 
sand years  anyway.  Here  Abraham  lived, 
and  entertained  the  heavenly  strangers  un- 
der the  oak.  Here  began  that  strange  but 
sure  line  of  revelation  through  patriarch, 
prophet,  priest,  chosen  people,  till  those 
days  came  when  God  spake  to  us  through 
His  Son  (in  whose  birth-town  we  are  to- 
day). Here  the  giants  lived.  Here  began 
the  separated  people.  Here  were  those 
springs,  the  upper  and  lower,  where  so  love- 
ly a  touch  of  romance  came  out,  and  the 
daughter  planned  to  get  the  lower  springs 
from  her  father  for  the  man  she  was  to  wed. 
Here  fi'om  Gaza  Samson  brought  the  gates 
for  a  joke.  Here  David  reigned  for  seven 
57 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

and  a  half  years,  and  over  the  pool  (still 
here)  hung  the  heads  of  the  men  who 
thought  they  would  please  him  by  the  mur- 
der of  Saul's  son,  Ishbosheth.  Here  Absa- 
lom began  his  pathetic  rebellion  that  ended 
in  such  divine  grief  in  the  room  over  the 
gate,  "  O,  Absalom,  my  son !  Would 
God  I  had  died  for  thee,  Absalom,  mv  son, 
ray  son  !  "  From  the  tower  on  the  hill  back 
of  the  old  oak  the  view  swept  from  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  Dead  Sea.  I  do  not 
wonder  that  the  angels  came  here,  the  shade 
of  the  oak,  the  balm  of  the  pines,  the  Avater 
from  the  spring,  the  view  across  the  valley, 
all  making  it  a  heavenly  spot.  Back  from 
Hebron  to  our  camp  at  Solomon's  Pools  we 
came,  and  this  morning,  after  a  short  hour's 
ride,  we  were  in  Bethlehem, — the  flock  tower 
of  David,  the  House  of  Bread,  the  little 
town  of  Bethlehem.  My  keenest  feeling, 
my  deepest  emotion  came  to  me  as  we  en- 
58 


the  oak  of   mamre 
Abraham's  oak 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

tered  the  village,  coming  along  the  road  be- 
tween the  fields  and  vineyards.  AVriting  in 
the  traditional  field  of  the  Shepherds, 
where  long  before  Ruth  had  gleaned,  the 
thought  awakens  and  thrills  again  that 
God  has  a  human  heart.  He  knows  what 
I  mean.  In  some  way  I  must  know  Him. 
Every  man  who  in  the  dim  past  or  in  his 
glimmer  of  light  to-day  worships  his  idol, 
who  seeks  to  bring  divinity  in  some  way 
within  his  reach,  is  yearning,  longing,  striv- 
ing for  the  God  he  comprehends  not,  is 
hungering  and  thirsting  for  the  Incarnation. 
"  O,  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  Him." 
O  for  "a  daysman  between  us,""  that  he 
might  "  lay  His  hand  upon  us  both,"^ — ■ 
upon  us  both.  Is  there  no  one  to  stand  as 
Mediator  between  God  and  me,  with  one 
hand  in  God's  and  the  other  in  mine,  and 
tell  me  what  I  long  to  know  about  God, 
what  God  thinks  of  me,  and  what  1  am  to 
59 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

think  of  Him  ?  Does  He  care  for  me  ? 
Will  He  forgive  me,  and  help  me  to  be 
good  ?  Are  we  related  to  each  other  ? 
Have  I  any  child's  right  to  speak  of  "  us 
both  ?  "  Blessed  forever  be  the  answer  that 
came  in  this  little  town  of  Bethlehem. 
"  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace,  good  will  to  men."  Here  "  in  the 
fulness  of  time  God  sent  forth  His  Son, 
made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  that 
we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons,"" 
through  Him  who  belongs  to  "  us  both." 

The  Church  of  the  Nativity  must  be  very 
old.  Its  simplicity  and  dignity  point  to  an 
ancient  date.  The  pillars  may  well  have 
been  brought  from  Jerusalem  by  the  Em- 
press Helena,  and  the  sombre  old  Basilica  is 
free  fi-om  offence.  The  door  of  entrance  is 
so  low  that  even  a  child  must  bow  to  enter. 
This  is  not  to  compel  reverence,  but  to  keep 
the  Mohammedans  from  driving  in  on  their 
60 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

horses.  The  Church  is  used  by  Greeks  and 
Romans  and  the  Armenian  Church,  the 
rooms  and  time  being  divided  among  them, 
each  having  its  own  altar,  and  taking  its 
turn  in  the  sacred  crypt  below.  It  cannot 
but  mortify  and  pain  anyone  who  loves  the 
Saviour,  and  who  remembers  His  prayer 
"  that  they  all  may  be  one,"  to  see  Turkish 
soldiers  standing  guard  night  and  day  in 
the  place  that  marks  His  birth,  stationed 
there  to  keep  the  peace  among  the  followers 
of  the  Prince  of  Peace.  There  was  blood — ■ 
shed  there  but  two  years  ago.  The  Cri- 
mean War  began  in  a  quarrel  about  the  re- 
placing of  a  golden  star  in  the  Shrine  of  the 
Nativity.  Russia  sided  with  the  Greek 
monks,  and  France  with  the  Romans.  I 
did  not  concern  myself  long  with  thoughts 
of  the  division,  for  deeper  than  the  things 
that  divide  lay  the  profound,  the  unspeak- 
ably dear,  and  some  day  victoriously  unify- 
6i 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

incT  truth  of  the  Incarnation.  All  who  wor- 
ship  here  confess  the  Father  Almighty,  and 
Jesus  Christ  His  only  Son,  our  Lord,  who 
for  us  men  and  our  salvation,  came  down 
from  heaven,  who  was  made  man.  I  was 
glad  I  could  not  read  the  words  on  the  sil- 
ver star  without  getting  on  my  knees. 
"  Hie  de  virgine  Maria  Jesus  Christus  natus 
est."  Fifteen  lamps  are  burning  always 
here,  six  belonging  to  the  Greeks,  five  to 
the  Armenians,  and  four  to  the  Latins. 
This  shrine  and  the  Chapel  of  the  Manger 
near  by,  are  overlaid  with  decoration  and 
are  far  enough  from  the  simplicity  that  is 
in  Christ  Jesus,  but  He  does  not  misunder- 
stand. It  is  the  best  these  men  knew  how 
to  do  in  honoring  Him.  I  was  glad  to  have 
a  quiet  half  hour  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  above  the  crypt,  with  a  chance  not 
so  much  to  think  as  to  feel,  to  be  still. 
A  most  interesting  visit  was  made  by  a 
62 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

few  of  us  to  the  pastor  of  the  German  Church 
of  Bethlehem,  to  whom  I  had  a  letter.  He 
took  us  in  his  school-room  where  a  hundi'ed 
boys  sang  in  Arabic  "  My  faith  looks  up  to 
Thee,"  sung  to  the  tune  "America."  In 
his  house,  in  the  same  building,  he  gave  us 
some  lemonade  that  it  takes  a  desert  wind 
to  make  one  appreciate.  On  the  wall  was 
the  friendly  face  of  our  Dr.  Dennis.  One  of 
the  preacher''s  daughters  put  on  the  native 
bridal  costume,  and  looked  as  pretty  as  a 
picture  in  it,  being  straightly  photographed, 
to  our  mutual  pleasure.  The  church  is  the 
finest  new  building  in  Bethlehem,  full  of 
good  memorial  windows  with  such  texts 
never  so  soul-stirring  as  now, — "  "We  have 
seen  His  star  in  the  east  [Morgenlande]  and 
have  come  to  worship," — "  Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest," — "  This  is  my  beloved  Son  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased."  The  organist 
played  chorals  for  us,  and  we  rested  and 
63 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

were  thankful.  The  church  Bible  was  the 
gift  of  the  present  Empress,  whose  name  is 
written  in  the  front.  We  lunched  in  the  P'ield 
of  the  Shepherds  under  some  olive-trees. 
This  is  the  country  of  Boaz,  and  the  tradi- 
tion is  that  this  very  field  was  the  one  in 
which  Ruth  gleaned.  "Why  not.''  It  had 
to  be  somewhere  in  this  small  valley — for 
the  boundless  walls  of  surrounding  rock 
never  grew  anything  more  than  precarious 
grazing  for  sheep  and  goats.  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  Bethlehem  but  six  miles  fi'om 
Jerusalem,  and  built  on  a  high  rocky  spot, 
as  high,  I  should  say,  as  Jerusalem.  Then 
to  the  east  we  rode  for  four  hours  through 
the  Wilderness  of  Judea,  full  of  memories 
of  John  the  Baptist,  till  we  came  to  the 
Monastery  of  Marsaba.  A  more  desolate 
place  cannot  be  imagined.  It  is  part  of  the 
wall  of  a  terrible  ravine  built  in  the  rock. 
It  grew  from  the  cave  of  the  hermit  Saba, 
64 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND  PALESTINE 

and  was  added  to  on  one  side  and  another, 
above  and  below,  till  now  sixty  or  eighty 
men  live  like  swallows  in  a  cliff.  The  rock 
is  a  sheer  pitch  of  six  hundred  feet  to  the 
bottom  of  the  gully.  I  led  prayers  in  the 
evening  after  dinner.  We  sat  in  a  circle  in 
the  moonlight,  and  gave  ourselves  long  to 
happy  thoughts,  and  songs  of  Bethlehem. 

We  were  roused  at  half-past  four  the  next 
morning  by  the  camp  alarum,  most  difficult 
to  get  accustomed  to,  an  alarum  of  cow-bells, 
and  dinner-bells,  and  tin  pans.  Breakfast  at 
five  and  the  camp  vanished — for  we  had  over 
six  hours  in  the  saddle  before  we  reached  our 
lunching-place  on  the  Jordan.  For  the  first 
two  hours  the  sun  was  somewhat  hidden  by 
clouds,  giving  us  a  good  start,  and  we  needed 
it,  for  a  hotter  ride  than  we  had  that  morn- 
ing may  I  never  take!  The  breeze  seemed 
to  have  blown  from  the  top  of  a  kitchen 
stove  on  Tuesday.  We  had  perpetual  di- 
65 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

vei-sion.  The  Mountains  of  Judea  or  the 
Wilderness  of  Judea  between  Jeioisalem  and 
the  Jordan,  through  which  we  rode,  is  a 
succession  of  bari'en  mountains,  on  which,  in 
the  rainy  season,  there  mu-t  be  some  pas- 
turage, for  as  far  as  one  can  see  they  are 
marked  with  paths  Hke  interlacing  lines 
made  by  the  goats,  for  who  shall  say 
how  many  centmnes  ?  Through  the  ^"alley 
of  the  Kedron  we  journeved,  now  climbing 
up  the  way  so  steep  that  we  were  cHnging 
to  our  horses"  necks,  and  now  going  down  a 
pitch  that  standing  up  seemed  K'ing  down. 
Many  a  time  the  way  was  too  full  of  smooth 
rocks  and  loose  stones  to  ride,  and  we  led 
our  horses.  More  than  once  the  path  was 
on  the  edge  of  a  gulf  a  thousand  feet  deep, 
where  a  goat  would  be  pardoned  for  being  a 
little  giddv,  and  a  single  mis-step  meant  the 
end  of  the  chapter.  One  of  the  pack -mules 
stumbled  yestei-day,  and,  with  his  load,  went 
66 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

to  tlie  bottom  of  the  defile,  where  it  was 
impossible  even  to  see  whcit  had  been  left 
of  him.  After  three  hours  the  barometer 
indicated  that  ^ve  had  reached  sea-leveL 
\\'e  ^vere  in  tropical  heat,  and  in  a  country 
suffering  from  drought.  A  dog  trotting 
along  with  u^  crept  panting  into  every 
shadow  he  could  find,  even  keeping  beside 
the  horses  to  be  in  their  shadow.  Om*  first 
view  of  the  Dead  Sea  from  the  mountain- 
ridge  made  us  shout  "*  Thalatta,**  and  ex- 
claim over  its  beauty,  a  dark  blue  gem  in  a 
setting  of  violet,  and  amber,  and  dull  reds, 
far  awav  and  beli.i\'.'.  When  at  last  we 
reached  its  shoivs.  1.300  feet  below  sea- 
level,  the  thermometer  was  13'2  .  and  our 
mouths  dry  as  cotton.  Part  of  the  cav- 
alcade went  on  to  the  lunching-place,  an 
hour  and  a  half  farther  over  the  stifling 
plains,  and  the  rest  of  us  stnpped  and  were 
in  the  water  in  a  minute.  It  was  a  delicious 
67 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

joke ;  a  joke  because  we  were  so  much  out 
of  water,  feet  refusing  to  stay  under,  and 
bodies  wobbling  like  a  high  boat  without 
ballast,  such  was  the  great  density  of  the 
water  ;  but  delicious — for  it  was  wet  and 
cool.  It  tasted  so  salty  that  it  seemed 
peppery,  biting  the  tongue  with  its  mixture 
of  chlorides  of  sodium,  calcium,  and  mag- 
nesium. It  looked  like  a  beautiful  Central 
New  York  lake,  with  its  shingly  beach  and 
rippling  waves.  I  saw  more  birds  within  a 
half  mile  of  the  Dead  Sea  than  I  had  seen 
for  hours  before.  Storks,  and  ravens,  quail, 
and  even  snipe,  with  a  nest  in  drift-wood  on 
the  beach.  The  mother  fluttered  around 
her  nest  in  anxious  self- consciousness,  like  a 
partridge  playing  ""possum  in  close  quarters. 
From  the  Sea  to  the  camp  was  the  most 
trying  ordeal  so  far,  for  we  breakfasted  at 
five  o'clock,  and  after  our  swim  at  ten  o'clock, 
we  had  nothing  to  eat  up  for  nearly  two 
68 


THE     DEAD    SEA     AND     THE 
WILDERNESS    OF    JUDEA 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

hours  but  the  pathetically  light  southern 
breeze  that  went  along  with  us.  Jordan  at 
last,  and  never  was  river  more  welcome. 
Everybody  absorbed  a  quart  of  Apollinaris,or 
St.  Galmier,  at  one  standing,  and  although 
I  had  been  taught  in  temperate  climes  that 
one  should  not  bathe  within  three  hours  after 
eating,  I  felt  that  it  must  be  radically  differ- 
ent here,  and  that  there  must  be  some  qual- 
ity of  mercy  in  the  Jordan,  especially  when 
the  mercury  was  at  100°  in  the  shade,  and  so 
I  went  in  the  river  at  two  o'clock  with  a  glad 
company  of  men,  who  seemed  to  have  for- 
gotten everything  about  history  and  experi- 
ence and  sacred  associations,  in  the  pure  and 
absorbing  joy  of  being  boys  in  swimming. 
Six  of  us  swam  across  a  strong  current  and 
sat  in  a  bower  of  shade  on  the  other  side  of 
Jordan  with  not  a  conscious  want,  supremely 
happy.  Mr.  Elmendorf  photographed  our 
shining  faces  as  we  approached   the   shore 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

swimming  back,  and  told  us  he  would  call 
it  "  Russian  Pilgrims  at  the  Jordan,"  for 
this  is  the  place  where  thousands  of  them 
come  to  bathe  after  Easter.  It  was  jxot  far 
from  here  that  the  Children  of  Israel  crossed 
over  against  Jericho.  When  we  had  dried 
off  and  warmed  up  again  we  went  back  into 
the  river  with  re-awakened  joy,  and  stayed 
there  till  we  felt  cool,  for  the  first  time  in 
no  one  knows  how  long.  Horses  at  foiu* 
o''clock,  and  such  a  ride  to  Jericho  !  We 
had  noticed  strange  columns  of  dusty  smoke 
over  the  mountains,  and  soon  the  Dead  Sea 
was  invisible,  and  we  rode  to  Jericho  in  the 
teeth  of  a  dust  and  sand  storm.  It  turned 
us  gray  in  a  jiffy,  and  gave  us  a  staggering, 
choking  hour.  How  welcome  was  our  camp 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Mountain  of  Temp- 
tation, pitched  at  Elisha's  fountain.  Such 
a  fountain  as  it  is, — just  a  well  of  water 
springing  up  and  singing  and  laughing,  cool 
70 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

and  clear,  with  plenty  to  drink,  pools  to 
bathe,  raceway  for  a  mill,  brooks  running 
everywhere  for  gardens,  and  with  the  sting 
of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  dust  of  the  desert 
still  in  our  mouths  !  Jericho  has  fulfilled 
every  prophecy  in  its  degeneracy  and  degra- 
dation, being  only  a  collection  of  hovels 
and  Bedouin  tents,  and  only  a  sign  or  two 
left  that  ever  a  city  stood  here.  At  our 
Sunday  service  the  Rev.  Mr.  Persons,  of 
Cazenovia,  N.  Y.,  preached,  and  our  male 
quartet — Stone,  of  Auburn  Seminary,  Dr. 
Merle  Smith,  Brewer  Eddy,  of  Auburn 
Seminary,  and  I — sang.  It  was  a  scorching 
day,  130°  in  the  tent  open  court,  and  95° 
in  our  tents,  though  nmch  tempered  by  the 
breeze.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  thermometer 
stood  130°  before  our  tent,  and  that  five 
hours  later  the  mercury  had  fallen  sixty- 
three  degrees.  The  change  gave  us  all  a 
71 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

most  comfortable  night.  We  took  time  by 
the  forelock  again,  and  were  up  at  4.20 
this  morning,  and  on  the  southern  road 
from  Jericho  to  Jerusalem,  the  road  our 
Saviour  took  after  He  had  healed  the  blind 
Bartimaeus.  Again  and  again  our  thoughts 
tm'ned  to  Him  who  went  before  His  dis- 
ciples along  this  way,  and  "  they  were 
amazed,  and  as  they  followed  they  were 
afraid.""  His  decision  had  been  made,  and 
as  far  as  that  choice  was  concerned  the  be- 
trayal and  crucifixion  were  already  accom- 
plished. He  had  chosen  irrevocably,  say- 
ing :  "  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and 
the  Son  of  Man  shall  be  delivered  unto  the 
Chief  Priests  and  unto  the  Scribes,  and  they 
shall  condemn  Him  to  death."  Luke  records 
the  beginning  of  this  closing  chapter  of  our 
Lord's  life  with  the  words  :  "  And  it  came 
to  pass,  when  the  time  came  that  He  should 
be  received  up,  that  He  stedfastly  set  His 

72 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

face  to  go  to  Jerusalem."  We  read  some  of 
the  Psalms  of  Ascent :  "  I  will  lift  up  mine 
eyes  unto  the  hills,""  "  I  was  glad  when  they 
said  unto  me:  let  us  go  into  the  house  of 
the  Lord,"  and  thought  of  the  countless 
pilgrims  who  had  come  this  way  to  the 
Holy  City,  journeying  with  joy  and  glad- 
ness. How  different  His  last  journey, 
when  at  last  the  cry  broke  from  the  heart  of 
Christ :  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  which 
killest  the  prophets,  and  stonest  them 
that  are  sent  unto  thee ;  how  often  would  I 
have  gathered  thy  children  together,  as 
a  hen  doth  gather  her  brood  under  her 
wings,  and  ye  would  not ! "  We  have  fol- 
lowed our  Lord's  footsteps  with  strange 
emotions,  stopping  at  the  Khan,  named  for 
the  Good  Samaritan  whom  Jesus  used  to 
show  all  men  how  to  love ;  steadily  climb- 
ing the  steep  road  to  Jerusalem  ;  resting  at 
Bethany,  of  all  spots  the  nearest  a  home  of 
73 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

Jesus,  thinking  of  Simon  the  leper,  and 
Mary,  and  Martha,  and  Lazarus,  and  re- 
calling Tennyson's  Avonderful  verse  from 
"In  Memoriam"—"  Behold  a  man  raised 
up  by  Chi-ist,"  and  "  Her  eyes  are  homes  of 
silent  prayer."  And  then,  by  the  way  He 
must  so  often  have  gone,  we  came  in  sight  of 
the  city,  flooded  in  sunlight.  Forget  it,  who 
can  !  It  may  be  a  different  looking  city, 
but  yet  it  is  the  same,  Jerusalem,  "  beauti- 
ful for  situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole 
earth,*"  self-centred  and  self-righteous,  yet 
more  than  Rome, — more  than  Greece, — the 
centre  of  light  for  the  whole  earth,  the 
scene  of  its  own  deep  shame,  and  the  world's 
sure  hope  and  salvation.  Back  from  its 
present  degradation,  the  outward  sight  of 
the  city,  still  how  beautiful,  carries  our 
thoughts  to  her  ancient  glory,  and  onward 
to  the  "  New  Jerusalem  coming  down  from 
God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride 
74 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

adorned  for  her  husband."  From  Geth- 
semane  we  came  again  to  the  brow  of  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  and  for  two  hours  let  our 
eyes  and  thoughts  roam  back  and  forth  over 
the  city.  The  centuries  of  its  history  passed 
in  review,  from  the  time  when  to  Mount 
Moriah  Abraham  first  linked  imperishable 
human  interest,  to  the  days  of  the  strong- 
hold of  the  Jebusites,  and  the  City  of  David, 
in  the  era  of  Solomon  and  his  glory,  and  the 
Captivity  and  Restoration,  the  gallant  vic- 
tories of  the  Maccabees,  the  Pharisaic 
bondage,  and  Roman  subjection,  the  days 
of  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  the  destruction 
of  the  city,  the  pitiful  attempt  at  national 
revival,  the  Moslem  domination,  the  flaming 
period  of  the  Crusades,  and  the  steady  de- 
cline under  the  Turk.  Out  of  the  blue  two 
clear  and  contrasting  places  stand  out, 
strangely  separated,  yet  no  less  strangely 
united  —  the  rock  of  Moriah,  under  the 
75 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

Mosque  of  Omar,  and  the  hill  outside  the 
city  wall  where  the  Cross  of  Jesus  stood. 
All  who  honor  Abraham,  the  Father  of  the 
Faithful,  Jew,  Christian,  and  Mohammedan, 
look  on  that  strange  rock,  bare  and  rugged, 
where  Abraham's  devotion  to  God  was  so 
nobly  vindicated,  where  David,  long  after, 
bought  the  high  winnowing  rock  of  Araunah, 
the  Jebusite,  and  where  for  how  many  cen- 
turies stood  the  first,  and  the  second,  and 
the  third  temples,  and  what  a  succession  of 
Christian  and  Moslem  shrines  since.  There 
is  the  trough  and  hole  through  which  the 
sacrificial  blood  of  millions  of  bulls  and 
goats  has  flowed.  All  that  is  past.  That 
rock  under  the  mosque  belongs  to  a  dead 
past.  The  hope  of  the  future  is  bound  to 
the  hill  where  Christ  was  once  offered,  the 
"  Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of 
the  world,"  bound  to  Him  whose  perfect 
offering  fulfilled  and  finished  all  sacrifice, 
76 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

bound  to  Him  who  by  His  uplifting  -will  yet 
draw  all  men  unto  Himself.  We  saw  the 
sun  rise  over  Mount  Nebo  and  set  over 
Jei-usalem,  bounding  a  full  and  happy  day. 

How  cold  it  was  last  night !  At  Jericho 
the  day  before,  it  was  130'  in  the  sun,  and 
100°  in  the  shade,  and  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  at  nine  o'clock  last  night,  42°.  It 
took  all  the  clothes  we  could  muster  to 
keep  warm.  I  slept  comfortably,  however, 
tucking  mv  rubber  blanket  over  and  under 
the  bedding,  and  sliding  in  as  into  an  um- 
brella-case. After  breakfast  we  climbed 
the  noble  tower  of  the  Russian  Church  on 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  with  Jerusalem  spread 
before  us,  Bethphage  and  Bethany,  and 
Bethlehem  and  Mizpah,  in  plain  sight,  and 
the  width  of  the  land  fi-om  the  MediteiTa- 
nean  to  the  Dead  Sea  silver  bright  in  the 
morning  sunlight.  Then  to  the  Temple  en- 
closure, where  we  spent  most  of  the  morn- 
77 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

ing.  It  hurts  to  see  it  all  in  Moslem  hands, 
and  to  be  obliged  to  take  off  our  shoes  and 
shuffle  in  the  mis-matched  slippers.  It  was 
easy  to  see  what  a  glorious  place  it  had 
been,  for  even  the  degenerate  present  is  full 
of  majesty  and  beauty.  Nothing  is  surer 
in  Jerusalem  than  that  great  expanse  of 
bare  rock,  on  which  the  great  Altar  of 
Sacrifice  must  have  stood,  where  Abraham 
saw  Christ's  day  and  was  glad.  No  Mosque 
except  Sophia,  at  Constantinople,  is  more 
beautiful  than  this  of  Omar  guarding  the 
rock.  This  and  the  Mosque  El-Aksa,  a 
chiu'ch  going  back  to  Justinian,  were  both 
filled  with  beautiful  rugs  by  the  Sultan,  in 
honor  of  the  visit  of  the  German  Emperor. 
I  have  never  enjoyed  the  thought  of  that 
visit.  It  seemed  bad  business,  on  the  heels 
of  the  Armenian  atrocities,  for  the  Kaiser 
to  be  kissing  hands  with  the  unspeakable 
and  unrepentant  Turk.  It  was  not  far 
78 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

from  what  school-boys  would  have  called 
boot-licking.  Under  the  Temple  enclosm'e 
are  the  wonderful  sub-structures,  some  of 
them  dating  back  to  Herod's  times.  They 
are  called  Solomon''s  Stables,  and  it  is  plain 
to  see  where  horses  were  tied  and  fed,  but 
I  suspect  it  was  the  horses  of  the  Crusaders. 
From  the  walls  we  could  look  deep  down 
into  the  valley  of  the  Kidron,  though  it  has 
filled  up  over  eighty  feet,  and  its  bottom  is 
thirty-five  feet  east  of  its  old  bed.  In  the 
open  courts  of  the  Temple  some  boys  were 
playing  "  hop-scotch,"  and  thoughts  flew  to 
Him  who  had  watched  the  children  play- 
ing their  games.  How  often  He  was  here  ! 
Here  the  boy  asked  the  Doctors  of  the  Law 
questions  that  astonished  them.  Here  He 
was  at  the  Feast  of  Dedication.  Here,  on 
the  great  day  of  the  Feast  He  cried,  "  I  am 
the  Light  of  the  World."  Here  how  often 
He  came  with  the  disciples  teaching  daily. 
79 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

Here  He  discomfited  His  malicious  ques- 
tioners. Here  in  glowing  indignation  He 
freed  His  Father's  House  from  the  shame  of 
heartless  trading,  and  here  was  gladdened 
by  the  hosannas  of  the  children.  What  if 
the  old  buildings  are  gone  !  what  if  the 
gorges  are  filled  up  with  the  wreck  of  cen- 
tiu'ies ! — here  He  walked ;  the  outline  of 
these  changeless  hills  He  saw ;  on  this  holy 
hill  He  lifted  his  eyes  to  heaven.  Nearer 
still  to  Him  we  felt  ourselves  when  we 
walked  through  the  Via  Dolorosa,  and  un- 
der the  church  of  the  Sisters  of  Zion  saw 
the  old  pavement  deep  below  the  present 
road ;  saw  the  foundation  of  the  Pretorium 
that  ran  to  the  rock  level  of  the  Tower 
of  Antonia.  Close  to  this  spot,  it  may  be 
on  this  very  pavement,  "  Pilate  brought 
Jesus  forth  in  a  place  that  is  called  The 
Pavement."  On  one  of  the  stones  are  cut 
the  lines  of  a  kind  of  chess-board  where  Ro- 
80 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

man  soldiers  had  whiled  away  the  time.  I 
must  believe  that  close  to  this  spot  was  the 
derision,  when  the  soldiers  clothed  Him 
with  purple  and  crowned  Him  with  thorns. 
The  dearest  little  church  in  Jerusalem  is 
this  church  of  the  Sisters  of  Zion.  We 
worshipped  there  with  joy  and  sorrow,  and 
deep  gratitude  for  the  purity  and  simplicity 
of  the  conception  that  incorporated  the 
foundation  there  discovered  into  the  altar, 
and  placed  over  it  no  figure  of  Mary,  or 
Joseph,  or  saint,  but  only  a  white  marble 
Christ,  thorn-crowned,  and  with  the  robe 
and  reed  of  the  soldiers'  mockery — but, 
thank  God,  of  their  unwitting  prophecy — 
and  on  each  side  of  the  Saviour  a  kneeling 
angel.  In  the  new  German  Church,  whose 
dedication  brought  the  Emperor  here  two 
years  ago,  we  heard  the  organ  and  sang 
"  Ein  feste  burg  ist  unser  Gott."  But  a  lit- 
tle way  is  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 
8i 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

We  roamed  from  shrine  to  shrine  and  altar 
to  altar.  One  marked  the  centre  of  the 
world ;  another  the  spot  where  Adam  was 
created ;  one  the  spot  where  Christ  was 
imprisoned ;  and  another  where  He  was 
mocked.  Through  a  brass  aperture  a  reed 
is  thrust  to  touch  the  rock  on  which  He  was 
scourged,  and  then  the  reed  is  kissed  by  the 
worshippers.  A\^here  His  garments  were 
parted ;  where  He  was  nailed  to  the  Cross ; 
where  the  Cross  was  raised  ;  where  He  was 
taken  down  ;  where  the  penitent  thief  died ; 
where  the  true  Cross  was  found ;  where 
Queen  Helena  sat  while  the  Cross  was  being 
soufjht,  and  I  know  not  how  many  other 
spots,  are  marked  by  chapels  where  candles 
are  given  you  and  gifts  expected.  Latins 
and  Greeks,  Kopts,  Abyssinians,  Ai'menians, 
all  have  their  special  sanctuaries,  and  divide 
among  them  the  most  important  places.  It 
becomes  intolerable  after  a  while.  I  gave 
82 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

up  following  our  guide,  preferring  to  watch 
the  pilgrims  as  they  came  into  the  main  en- 
trance of  the  church,  and  saw  the  long  mar- 
ble called  the  Stone  of  Anointing  or  Wash- 
ing, on  which  they  believe  the  body  of 
Jesus  was  placed  before  His  burial.  Look- 
ing up,  they  cross  themselves,  bow,  fall  on 
their  knees,  kiss  the  stone  that  frames  the 
marble,  rise  and  cross  themselves  again,  and 
most  reverently  bow,  and  kneeling  kiss  the 
stone  itself  They  measure  the  stone,  too, 
so  that  their  winding-sheet  may  be  the 
same  length.  The  sincerity,  the  devotion 
and  the  joy  of  these  pilgi'ims  was  beautiful. 
Thousands  of  them  have  come  from  Russia 
alone,  the  great  majority  of  them  being 
men  and  women  sixty  years  of  age  and  more. 
For  a  lifetime  they  have  looked  forward 
to  their  reaching  the  shrine  of  all  most 
sacred.  With  staves  and  bundles  and  tea- 
pots they  have  journeyed,  old  women  wrin- 
gs 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

kled  like  the  old  portraits  Franz  Hals 
painted,  old  men  in  top  boots,  wearing 
belted  blouses  like  little  boys,  but  bearded 
and  bronzed,  and  looking  for  all  the  world 
like  Tolstoi,  out  of  Russia  with  return 
ticket  compulsorily  bought  at  Odessa, 
herded  like  cattle  on  the  steamer  to  Joppa, 
trudging  the  blinding,  blistering  roads  of 
Palestine  to  Bethlehem  and  Jerusalem  and 
the  Jordan,  Avhere  at  last  they  bathe  with 
the  solemnity  of  a  baptism,  it  is  all  the 
crown  of  a  lifetime,  and  a  real  "Nunc  di- 
mittis." 

Bethel,  April  6,  190L 
How  glad  we  were  in  the  evening  to  for- 
get the  church  full  of  rival  sects,  the  Moslem 
guards  smoking  and  gossiping  in  its  en- 
trance, the  scores  of  pedlars  in  its  front 
court  selling  palms  to  the  Greek  pilgrims, 
whose  Easter  is  a  week  later,  selling  every- 
thing to  eat  and  di'ink,  and  filling  the  place 
84 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

with  their  cries.  At  eight  o'clock  we  all 
went  into  the  city  through  the  Damascus 
gate  and  threaded  our  way  through  the 
vaulted  passage-ways  that  pass  for  streets  in 
this  city  (this  city,  "  which  is  compact  to- 
gether "  ),  till  we  entered  a  low  door,  and 
went  up  a  flight  of  stone  steps  to  an  open 
court  and  into  a  large  upper  room,  furnished, 
where  the  Lord's  Passover  had  been  made 
ready  for  us.  We  sang  "Just  as  I  am," 
"  There  is  a  green  hill  far  away,"  "  Rock  of 
Ages,"  "  My  faith  looks  up  to  Thee."  Dr. 
Thurber,  of  the  American  Chapel  in  Paris, 
led  the  service.  We  read  the  account  of 
the  supper  the  Lord  ate  this  same  evening, 
in  this  same  city,  "  before  He  suffered " ; 
we  pi-ayed,  and  took  the  bread  and  cup  in 
memory  of  Him.  A  twelve-year-old  boy 
who  was  in  our  company,  was  quite  over- 
come when  the  bread  was  given  him,  and 
unconsciously  helped  us  all,  who  were  full  to 
85 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

overflowing  with  emotion.  After  we  had 
"  sung  an  hymn  "  we,  too,  went  out  to  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  and  in  Gethsemane  with 
Christians  ah'eady  gathered  there,  wor- 
shipped our  Saviour  and  Lord.  It  was  the 
time  of  the  full  moon,  which  had  risen  over 
the  Mount  of  Olives.  Clouds  passed  by  and 
made  alternating  lights  and  shadows.  Once 
a  band  of  people,  with  lanterns,  came  around 
a  corner  of  the  street- wall,  and  the  illusion 
was  startling,  for  the  words  were  in  our 
ears,  "  Rise,  let  us  be  going,  behold  he  is  at 
hand  that  doth  betray  me."  The  thought 
that  possessed  me  in  Gethsemane  was  the 
perfect  purpose  of  Jesus  to  do  the  Father's 
will.  His  body  was  weakening  under  the 
strain  of  His  soul's  determination.  His 
human  sensibilities  shrinking  from  the  load 
of  the  world's  iniquities  that  were  laid  upon 
His  sacrificial  sympathy  and  redeeming  love, 
but  past  them  all  He  must  go  in  His  obe- 
86 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

dience.  Strength  He  must  have  lest  He 
break  down  before  the  cross  is  reached, 
and  power  was  given  Him.  His  strong 
crying  was  heard,  His  tears  were  effectual, 
and  He  was  strengthened  to  "  despise  the 
shame,  to  endure  the  cross,"  and  in  expiring 
to  cry  with  a  loud  voice. 

The  next  day  was  Good  Friday,  and 
while  some  of  our  company  were  tracing  the 
line  of  the  second  wall,  with  our  Consul,  Dr. 
Merrill,  showing  that  the  site  of  the  present 
Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  was  inside 
the  city  at  the  time  of  Christ,  a  few  of  us 
w^ent  with  our  Bibles  to  Calvary,  outside  the 
Damascus  gate,  near  the  road  that  led  into 
the  country,  on  which  Simon,  the  Cyrenian, 
was  journeying,  and,  sitting  down,  we  read 
aloud  the  account  of  that  night  of  shame 
and  outrage  and  the  day  that  followed.  It 
is  something  to  be  forever  thankful  for,  to 
have  had  such  an  opportunity  where  the 
87 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

place  and  the  day,  the  words  of  the  Gospel, 
and  our  own  sorrowful,  trusting,  thankful 
hearts,  united  to  bring  home  to  us  the  over- 
whelming reality  of  the  Divine  Sacrifice. 
And  the  garden  beside  the  hill,  how  beauti- 
ful it  is  !  English  Christians  own  it.  It  is 
full  of  signs  of  loving  care,  bright  and 
fi-agrant  with  flowers  that  bloom  to  the  very 
edge  of  the  solid  rock,  in  which,  a  few  years 
ago,  a  large  unfinished  tomb  was  found. 
Was  it  here  that  the  body  of  Jesus  rested  ? 
Was  it  here  Death  was  vanquished,  and 
our  dearest  hopes  confirmed  ?  Was  it  this 
garden  in  which  the  loving  woman  stood, 
begging  the  gardener  to  tell  her  where  they 
had  taken  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  heard 
Jesus  utter  the  word  that  thrills  us  all 
to-day,  "  Mary  ?  "  Who  can  say  ?  Paul 
sounded  the  note  of  changeless  truth,  and 
well  may  we  all  accept  it  as  the  true  resolu- 
tion,— "  \\'Tierefore  henceforth  know  we  no 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

man  after  the  flesh  ;  yea,  though  we  have 
known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet  now  hence- 
forth know  we  Him  no  more."  The  true 
cross  we  may  find  in  supreme  loyalty  of  will 
to  God.  The  real  Easter  is  the  power  of 
Christ's  resurrection  that  raises  our  spirits 
to  heavenly  places,  and  fills  our  lives  on 
earth  with  the  joy  and  peace,  the  victory 
and  love  of  the  spirit  of  the  risen  Christ. 
In  the  evening,  in  moonlight  that  seemed 
as  bright  as  day,  we  had  prayers  on  the  sa- 
cred hill,  glad  to  know  it  was  to  be  our  last 
impression  of  Jerusalem.  We  could  not 
bear  to  spend  Easter  in  the  Moslem  city  ; 
and  left  Jerusalem  early  this  morning  plan- 
ning on  green  hills,  under  blue  skies,  to 
celebrate  the  day  of  joy  and  gladness. 
Poor  Jerusalem  !  It  was  its  great  week — 
the  Jews  having  Passover,  the  Christians 
Easter,  and  the  Moslems  their  day  of  great 
sacrifice  when  Mecca  pilgrimage  ends,  and 
89 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

their  Neby  Musa  begins,  a  Jerusalem  cele- 
bration and  parade  planned  to  counteract  or 
counter-irritate  the  Christian  Easter.  They 
go  with  banners,  and  drums,  and  dervishes  to 
the  tomb  of  Moses,  on  this  side  of  Jordan. 
The  intelligent  know  it  is  not  authentic,  but 
the  mob  believe  it.  As  one  said,  "  Moses 
lived  in  several  different  houses  when  he 
was  alive,  why  shouldn't  he  have  more  than 
one  grave  .'* "  Despite  all  the  excitement 
this  week  had,  Jerusalem  is  so  far  from 
being  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  that  it 
seems  the  bottom  of  degi'adation  and  hope- 
lessness. The  Jews  wailing  by  the  old  A\all 
on  Fridays  would  be  most  stirring  for  its 
fitness,  if  it  were  not  so  histrionic  with  eyes 
of  the  wailers  looking  this  way  and  that. 
Trodden  down  of  the  Gentiles,  and  such 
Gentiles  !  Bitter  fate  for  the  city  that  be- 
fore all  is  the  "  Mother  of  us  all,""  and  after 
all  gives  its  name  to  the  New  Jerusalem  of 
go 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

oui"  heavenly  faith,  hope,  and  love.  \N'^ho 
shall  say,  however,  what  future  this  City  of 
the  Great  King  may  yet  have  in  store  for 
it, — City  of  Melchisedek, — City  of  David, — 
City  of  our  Saviour"'s  love,  and  tears,  and 
death,  and  resurrection  ? 

What  a  ride  it  was  as  we  left  in  the  cool, 
brilliant  morning !  What  a  view  as  we 
looked  back  upon  the  city  "  on  the  sides  of 
the  north"  from  Scopus,  the  hill  on  which 
Titus  began  his  siege.  There  was  no  attack- 
ing it  from  the  other  sides,  where  the  deep 
gorges  of  Kidron,  and  Hinnom,  and  Tyro- 
poean  valley  gave  more  than  moated  protec- 
tion. We  pitched  our  lunch-tent  at  noon 
at  Bethel,  and  read  its  wonderful  history 
in  Genesis,  especially  Jacob's  story  in  the 
twenty-eighth  chapter,  so  wonderfully  treat- 
ed in  the  hymn  "  Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee ;" 
its  subsequent  history  in  Joshua,  Judges, 
Sanuiel,  and  Kings.  The  ride  from  Bethel 
91 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

to  Sinjil  was  in  charming  air,  a  westerly 
breeze  from  the  sea,  but  over  the  worst  road 
I  ever  dreamt  of.  No  mountain-stream  I 
ever  waded  had  so  steep  a  pitch,  or  was  so 
full  of  loose  stones  and  smooth  pitches  as 
this  dry  wady.  We  could  not  ride  our 
horses  a  tenth  of  the  way,  but  led  them, 
stumbling,  slithering,  hirpling  along  as  best 
we  could.  A  little  more  and  we  shall  all 
be  wearing  our  Sunday  shoes  for  every-day. 

Jacob's  Well. 
At  Sinjil  from  our  camp  we  looked  across 
a  fertile  valley  to  Shiloh,  full  of  memories 
of  the  lots  cast  for  the  tribes'  possessions,  of 
the  daughters  of  Shiloh  carried  off  for  wives 
by  the  sons  of  Benjamin,  of  Eli,  and  the 
Ark.  How  long  it  has  been  in  ruins ! 
Jeremiah  said  of  Jerusalem  :  "  The  Lord 
will  make  it  like  Shiloh."  We  had  a  good 
day  of  rest  on  the  hill  above  Sinjil,  and  an 
92 


--•^' 


THE     DAMASCUS    ROAD    OUT    OF    JERUSALEM 
NEAR    BETHEL 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

Easter  service  in  the  big  tent,  with  the  table 
covered  with  flowers.  A  walk  in  the  village 
in  the  afternoon  gave  me  an  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  their  home  life,  for  we  went  into  the 
home  of  a  rich  man,  and  of  a  poor  man. 
Tlie  former  made  a  fire,  roasted  some  coffee 
and  gave  it  to  us,  beginning  with  the  old- 
est. His  wife  was  grinding  wheat  as  we 
came  in.  His  three  children,  and  fifteen 
others,  sat  aromid  in  a  silence  we  could  not 
credit,  for  it  was  the  first  time  in  Palestine 
the  din  of  Baksheesh  !  Baksheesh  !  had  not 
been  ringing  in  our  ears.  Some  of  the 
party  came  across  a  case  of  small-pox  in 
their  wanderings,  and  scuttled  backwards 
like  crabs.  Two  of  our  company  went  back 
this  morning  to  Jerusalem  because  of  illness 
that  made  this  hard  riding  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Four  hours  riding  this  Monday  morn- 
ing along  the  high-road  from  Jerusalem  to 
Samaria,  high  and  low,  rough  and  rocky, 
93 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

making  us  scramble  and  shuffle  among  the 
loose  stones,  brought  us  to  this  spot  most 
beautiful,  with  the  fertile  plain  before  us, 
Mount  Ebal  and  Mount  Gerizim  back  of  us, 
but  a  little  away  from  Sychar  on  the  north 
and  Shechem  on  the  west.  This  is  the  parcel 
of  ground  which  Jacob  gave  to  his  son  Jo- 
seph, where  Jacob's  well  is,  and  Jesus  sat  by 
the  well,  being  wearied  with  the  journey.-  Of 
no  one  spot  in  this  Holy  Land  can  we  be 
more  sure  than  this.  It  is  now  enclosed  by 
a  wall,  and  in  a  garden  of  apricot-trees. 
The  ruins  of  a  church  built  around  it  in 
the  fourth  century  are  plainly  visible.  A 
little  shrine  encloses  it,  reached  by  ten  or 
twelve  stone  steps.  The  Avell  has  been 
partly  filled  up  by  stones  dropped  down  to 
test  its  depth.  I  drew  some  water  from  it 
with  a  rope  seventy-five  feet  long,  and  we 
drank  it,  and  it  was  cool  and  sweet.  How 
the  divinity  and  the  humanity  of  the  Saviour 
94 


RUINS  OVER  Jacob's   well 

NEAR    SHECHEM 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

are  linked  in  this  wonderful  fourth  chapter 
of  John  !  How  marvellous  that  the  high- 
est, clearest  declaration  of  spiritual  religion 
should  have  been  made  here,  and  to  a  poor, 
sinful  Samaritan  woman.  But  the  world 
knows  it,  knows  it  from  Him,  and  knows  it  is 
of  God.  I  can  never  forget  the  scene — the 
long  road  that  wearied  us,  that  wearied 
Him ;  Sychar  at  the  foot  of  Ebal ;  the  broad 
fields  on  which  He  told  the  disciples  to  look, 
comparing  their  ripeness  and  the  readiness 
of  the  men  of  Samaria.  The  music  of  the 
beautiful  "  Song  of  the  Well,"  in  Bennett's 
"  Woman  of  Samaria,"  with  the  water 
springing  up,  has  been  singing  itself  to  me 
all  day  long. 

Nabulus. 
After  lunch  we  climbed  Mount  Gerizim, 
where  the  ruins  of  the  Samaritan   Temple 
are,  and  the  altar  which  they  use  now,  kill- 
ing seven  lambs,  according  to  the  ancient 
95 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

rites.  Heaps  of  brushwood  are  by  the 
altar,  ready  for  the  celebration  three  days 
from  to-day.  It  is  the  sole  survival  of  the 
Mosaic  ritual,  the  narrow  thread  of  that 
great  stream  of  sacrifice  which  came  down 
through  the  old  dispensation.  The  Samari- 
tans number  but  a  hundred  or  so.  In  their 
synagogue  Nabulus  (Shechem),  the  oldest  in 
the  world,  they  worship,  a  few  tatters  of  the 
Samaritan  nation.  We  saw  their  new  Pen- 
tateuch, which  dates  from  the  Maccabees 
more  than  a  century  b.  c,  and  a  still  older 
one,  no  one  knows  how  old.  We  had  to 
have  good  protection  through  the  streets  of 
this  city,  for  it  is  thoroughly  Moslem  and 
fanatical,  and  as  it  was  we  had  curses  hurled 
at  us,  and  occasional  stones.  The  filth  and 
degradation  of  their  streets  passes  belief, 
but  never  gets  past  the  senses.  The  face  of 
the  Samaritan  High  Priest  was  beautiful, 
thoughtful,  and  refined,  and  sent  my  thoughts 
96 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

swiftly  to  the  Good  Samaritan.  I  wish  Tis- 
sot  could  have  had  this  face  in  his  pictures 
of  the  Saviour.  The  priest's  name  was 
Jacob  Aaron.  He  is  of  the  lineage  of  the 
Tribe  of  Levi,  and  lives  on  the  tithes  of  his 
people.  He  trains  the  few  Samaritan  chil- 
dren in  his  care  in  the  Law  of  Moses. 
Speaking  of  the  law  reminds  me  of  the  blood 
I  saw  on  the  walls  and  door-frames  of  Mos- 
lem houses,  sprinkled  or  daubed  there  as  one 
of  their  religious  rites,  derived,  doubtless, 
from  the  Jewish  Passover. 

We  were  thankful  yesterday  that  Dr. 
Wright,  of  the  English  Church  Missionary 
Society,  was  but  fifteen  miles  away,  for  he 
was  a  friend  in  need  to  two  of  our  travellers 
who  were  sick  enough  to  need  medical  at- 
tendance. He  stayed  over  night  with  us, 
and  caught  such  a  cold  in  camp  that  we 
found  him  to-day  in  his  home  sick  a-bcd. 
The  hospital  here  is  a  model  one.  If  people 
97 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

at  home  could  realize  what  an  oasis  in  the 
desert,  what  a  centre  of  light,  what  seed 
of  future  harvests,  what  an  advance  guard 
of  Christian  civilization,  such  a  Christian 
church,  and  school,  and  hospital  are,  they 
would  glory  in  the  love  that  conceived 
them,  and  sustain  them  with  enthusiasm. 
Over  one  hundred  and  fifty  a  day  of  these 
fanatical,  ignorant,  dirty  human  beings 
pass  through  its  gate  into  perfect  clean- 
ness, order,  intelligence,  and  kindness.  Not 
a  few  of  them  become  Christians,  but  not 
one  of  them  escapes  the  inoculation  of  new 
ideas.  All  through  these  lands  Christian 
missions  are  making  molecular  and  structural 
changes  that  do  not  appear  in  reports,  nor 
show  themselves  to  the  passing  tourist,  but 
that  yet  are  profound  and  prophetic,  and 
surely  preparing  the  way  of  the  Lord. 
This  is  a  place  where  such  a  work  is  not 
only  desperately  needed,  but  a  place  whose 
98 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

history  naturally  calls  for  it,  since  it  was  to 
Shechem  that  Abraham  first  came,  whom 
God  blessed,  that  he  might  be  a  blessing, 
and  it  was  Shechem  that  Moses  appointed 
as  one  of  the  cities  of  refuge.  This  would 
have  been  the  inevitable  capital  of  a  United 
Israel  if  it  could  have  been  fortified,  for  it  is 
the  centre  of  the  land,  and  accessible  from 
every  direction.  Its  interest,  however,  pales 
before  Samaria.  It  was  the  head  and  front 
of  to-day  (April  9th).  Up  its  ascent  we 
rode  and  viewed  the  site  of  the  city.  "  The 
head  of  the  fat  valley  "  is  a  literal  descrip- 
tion of  it.  It  is  a  hill  with  a  continuous 
valley  encircling  it,  girded  by  splendid 
mountains.  Every  way  you  look  a  rich 
vale  of  wheat,  or  olives,  or  figs,  is  before 
you,  and  back  of  the  vale  the  climbing 
mountain.  In  an  olive  orchard  thirty  pil- 
lars of  Herod's  palace  stand  to-day.  Two 
amphitheatres  are  clearly  outlined.  Pillars 
99 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

and  capitals,  and  pieces  of  cornice,  and 
architrave  are  everywhere  —  and  the  gate 
where  the  doubter  was  trampled  upon,  where 
the  famine  was  ended  by  the  Syrian  flight. 
The  glory  of  old  Samaria  was  ended  722 
B.C.,  when  Sargon  earned  captive  the  ten 
tribes.  Herod  more  than  restored  its  glory 
when  he  made  it  most  royal,  and  named  it 
Sebaste,  in  honor  of  Augustus  (Sebaste  in 
Greek).  The  Church  of  St.  John  the  Bap- 
tist, built  by  the  Crusaders,  largely  survives 
in  a  mosque  to-day.  Samaria  must  have 
stood  out  temple  crowned,  like  the  Acrop- 
olis, in  the  days  of  its  wicked  splendor, 
visible  from  every  side. 

From  Samaria  we  rode  through  the  plain 
of  Dothan,  where  Joseph  sought  his  broth- 
ers. I  saw  an  empty  grain-pit  which  would 
perfectly  have  answered  their  fraternal  pur- 
pose for  the  young  dreamer. 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

Nazareth,  April  10,  1901. 
To-day  we  have  crossed  the  most  famous 
battle-ground  of  the  world — the  plain  of 
Megiddo — the  plain  of  Jezi'eel,  or  the  plain 
of  Esdraelon,  highway  of  the  nations.  The 
paths  across  it  were  red,  and  thev  might 
\\e\\  be  for  the  blood  that  here  has  been 
shed.  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Philistine,  He- 
brew, Greek,  IMaccabean,  Jew,  Persian,  Ro- 
man, Crusader,  Turk,  Frenchmen,  here  have 
fought.  To  the  east  are  the  mountains  of 
Gilboa,  on  which  David  prayed  that  there 
might  be  no  dew,  as  he  lamented  Saul  and 
Jonathan  dead.  There  eastward,  too,  are 
the  ruins  of  Beth-shan,  where  Saul's  body 
was  hung  up.  Up  the  hill  of  Jezreel  we 
climbed,  where  Ahab  and  Jezebel  set  up 
their  abominations,  where  poor  Naboth  was 
done  to  death  that  Jezebel  might  have  his 
vineyard,  and  where  the  painted  Queen  her- 
self was  thrown  from  the  palace  window — 

lOI 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

gone  to  the  dogs  at  last.  The  view  to  the 
north,  over  the  wonderful  plain,  was  start- 
ling in  its  beauty.  What  places  those  old 
builders  chose,  Hebron,  Jerusalem,  Samaria, 
and  Jezreel !  Past  the  remnants  of  Nain  we 
rode,  and  Shunem,  and  Endor,  past  Gideon"'s 
fountains,  where  the  soldiers  were  tested, 
past  the  source  of  the  Brook  Kishon,  and 
on  for  hours  over  the  plain  of  Esdraelon — 
endless,  compared  with  the  little  patches  of 
level  land  we  had  seen  before,  and  a  para- 
dise of  fertility  compared  to  rocky  Judea. 
I  never  dreamed  Nazareth  was  on  such  a 
mountain.  It  was  an  hour's  climb  to  the 
town  that  is  built  in  a  hollow  a  few  hundred 
feet  below  the  top  of  the  range.  It  might 
well  have  been  from  that  high  point  just 
above  His  home  that  Jesus  saw  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  in  a  moment  of  time,  for 
from  the  Jordan  valley  on  the  east  the  eye 
can  sweep  to  the  very  surf  of  the  Mediter- 


A    GOAT    HERD    NEAR 
NAZARETH 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

ranean,  and  from  the  mountains  of  Samaina 
across  the  plain  southward,  to  the  glory  of 
snow-crowned  Hermon  on  the  north.  Cir- 
cling the  town  wind  the  caravan  routes  fi'om 
Damascus  and  the  Far  East  to  the  Great 
Sea  and  Egypt.  Let  no  one  think  that  the 
boyhood  and  young  manhood  of  Jesus  were 
spent  in  a  corner.  Josephus  says  there 
were  204  cities  of  over  15,000  inhabitants 
in  Galilee.  This  was  The  Galilee  literally. 
The  circle  of  the  nations  in  which  Nazareth 
found  itself.  Before  the  eyes  of  Jesus  there 
passed  all  the  greatness  of  the  world,  the 
endless  pageant  of  travel,  and  trade,  and 
war,  of  the  Decapolis  and  Syria,  Phoenicia 
and  Greece,  and  Rome.  It  flashes  a  new 
light  on  the  words  :  "  He  knew  what  was 
in  man,"  when  we  think  that  there  was  no 
type  of  faith  or  fashion,  no  school  of  men, 
no  warlike  arms  that  did  not  cross  and  re- 
cross  this  pathway  between  North  and  South, 
103 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

between  East  and  West.  We  were  shown  the 
spot  in  one  of  the  churches  where  Mary  was 
told  the  tidings  of  Israel's  hopes  and  the  de- 
sire of  nations  ;  the  carpenter  shop  of  Joseph  ; 
and  the  synagogue  where  Jesus  stood  up 
"  and  the  eyes  of  all  were  fixed  upon  Him." 
It  matters  not  to  us — the  sacred  spots  where 
these  monuments  of  an  uncritical  faith  are 
built ;  it  matters  not  that  men  show  the 
wine-jar  at  Cana  that  made  the  wedding 
glad,  and  the  stone  on  which  the  Angel  of 
Annunciation  sat ;  here  certainly  in  Naz- 
areth Jesus  played  as  a  little  boy,  surely 
in  this  very  maricet-place  where  our  tents 
were  pitched ;  here  He  learned  both  of  His 
Father'^s  books  by  heart,  and  here  He  made 
ploughs  and  yokes.  The  Hill  of  Precipita- 
tion, from  which  the  people  would  have  cast 
Him,  did  not  satisfy  us  at  all,  as  it  was  one 
and  a  half  miles  from  the  town.  The  Vir- 
gin's fountain  was  delightful,  with  its  two 
104 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

streams  of  water  gushing  into  a  stone  basin 
and  then  filling  a  large  stone  enclosed  pool. 
As  this  is  the  only  water  in  Nazareth,  we 
cannot  doubt  that  the  Mother  and  Child 
were  often  here,  like  the  mothers  and  chil- 
dren we  have  seen.  Some  of  the  women''s 
faces  were  strong  and  fine,  but  we  saw  no 
such  children's  faces  as  there  were  at  Beth- 
lehem. It  was  quite  as  it  should  be  that 
one  of  the  best  orphanages  in  Palestine  has 
been  placed  here  by  the  Church  Missionary 
Society.  Over  seventy  girls  are  living  here 
in  cleanliness,  instead  of  filth,  with  educa- 
tion, and  order,  and  hope,  and  love  in  their 
lives,  instead  of  ignorance,  and  neglect,  and 
hopelessness.  To  go  into  these  clean,  sweet 
rooms,  and  into  the  Scotch  Medical  Mission, 
under  Dr.  \'artan,  famous  through  the  whole 
countryside,  is  to  feel  a  thrill  of  jov  that 
the  love  of  God  is  being  shed  abroad  in 
these    hearts,  and  the    people    that    sit    in 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

darkness  are  seeing  a  great  light.  To-day, 
in  Tiberias,  three  of  us  breakfasted  with  Dr. 
Torrance  (who  attended  the  Ecumenical 
Council  in  New  York  City),  who  has  the 
only  centre  of  health  and  hope  in  Tiberias, 
in  fact,  in  this  whole  district.  Every  morn- 
ing at  his  door  the  blind,  and  maimed,  and 
diseased  come,  as  they  did  in  the  time  of 
Jesus,  and  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  he  and  his 
helpers  do  what  they  can  for  their  bodies  and 
minds.  He  performed  more  than  one  thou- 
sand operations  last  year,  and  has  a  hundred 
consultations  a  day.  To  come  to  such  a 
Christian  Mission,  if  only  a  Greek  or  Roman 
Catholic,  but  how  much  more  a  Protestant 
one,  is  to  know  what  it  is  to  find  an  oasis  in  a 
desert.  Whatever  else  I  may  miss  I  will  not 
miss  seeing  the  missions  of  any  Christian 
church,  for  the  sake  of  the  encouragement  I 
can  get  and  give.  The  last  forty-eight  hours 
were  memorably  spent  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 
io6 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

It  was  far  more  beautiful  than  I  had  imagined. 
The  lake  is  "  blue  Galilee"  indeed,  the  shape 
of  a  harp,  encircled  with  mountains,  receiv- 
ing the  muddy  Jordan  at  one  end,  and 
sending  it  out  clean  and  clear  thirteen  miles 
away  at  the  other.  Our  camp  was  at  the 
hot  spring  below  Tiberias,  and  as  we  looked 
out  this  morning  it  seemed  as  though  we 
must  be  at  one  of  the  Italian  lakes,  so  sharp 
were  the  mountain  lines,  so  clear  the  air,  so 
blue  and  flashing  the  waves.  Yesterday  we 
went  by  row-boat  to  the  southern  end  of  the 
lake,  and  this  morning  to  the  northern  end, 
seeing  where  the  Jordan  made  its  entrance 
and  its  exit.  I  tried  my  fishing  tackle,  but 
in  vain.  I,  too,  caught  nothing.  I  fancy 
the  fish  have  never  been  trained  to  be  caught 
by  anything  but  a  net.  As  we  rowed  liome 
at  sunset  a  light  like  Alpen-glow  came  over 
the  mountains   with   the  rosy  light   fading 

last  from  Mount  Hermon,  and  we  talked  of 

107 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

what  this  lake  must  have  been  with  Beth- 
saida,  Capernaum,  Magdala,  Tiberias,  Cho- 
razin,  Dahnanutha,  Gadara,  and  Hippos 
flourishing  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  Jesus. 
Here  He  called  and  trained  the  disciples, 
and  taught  the  multitude  and  fed  them. 
Land  and  Sea  are  full  of  memories  of  Him, 
for  here  He  spent  most  of  His  public  life. 
Whole  chapters  of  the  Gospels  describe  the 
events  of  His  Galilean  ministry.  It  was 
easy  enough  to  see  how  the  disciples  could 
have  been  caught  in  a  sudden  storm,  and 
could  have  toiled  all  but  helplessly  against  a 
contrary  wind,  for  when  we  were  rowed  by 
our  Arab  oarsmen  to  the  southern  end  of 
the  lake  six  miles  away  from  our  camp,  the 
last  mile  went  swiftly  because  of  a  breeze 
that  sprang  up.  But  when  we  turned  to 
come  back  we  were  in  the  teeth  of  half  a 
gale  and  the  oarsmen  kept  as  close  in  the  lea 
as  they  could,  and  got  us  home  an  hour  and 
loS 


FIRST    VIEW    OF    THE 
SEA    OF    t;AI.II.El- 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

a  half  later  than  we  expected.  The  borders 
of  the  lake  are  glorious  with  pink  oleanders, 
some  of  them  like  little  trees,  and  all  in  full 
tilt  of  blossom.  At  Tel  Hum  the  Francis- 
cans have  a  little  monastery  with  a  paradise 
of  a  garden  full  of  figs,  grapes,  apricots,  and 
vegetables,  where  all  the  birds  of  the  coun- 
try seem  to  have  made  a  home.  Some  high- 
ly ornamented  stones  are  here  thought  to  be 
the  relics  of  the  White  Synagogue  of  Caper- 
naum, which  some  scholars  identify  with  Tel 
Hum.  The  verdure  and  fertility  of  such  a 
spot  show  what  the  land  must  have  been 
when  hundreds  of  thousands  of  busy  people 
lived  here.  The  mountains  and  low  ridges 
are  such  naked  bare  bones  of  desolation  to- 
day that  it  is  hard  to  believe  such  a  popula- 
tion could  ever  have  been  here,  but  the  cut- 
ting down  of  the  trees,  and  neglect  of  the 
terraces  let  the  slopes  soon  be  washed  bare. 
^^^lere  we  camped  last  night  near  the  Wa- 
109 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

ters  of  Merom  there  is  a  colony  of  Russian 
and  Roumanian  Jews,  founded  by  one  of  the 
Rothschilds,  It  has  been  in  existence  about 
sixteen  years,  and  the  place  looked  like  a 
clean,  thriving  German  or  Swiss  village. 
From  the  high  mountains  back  of  the  vil- 
lage a  water-supply  is  piped  that  runs  into 
a  stone  cistern  outside  every  house.  Or- 
chards of  almond-trees  and  vineyards  of 
Malaga  grapes  are  everywhere,  and  thou- 
sands of  mulberry-trees  support  a  good  silk- 
worm industry.  We  went  into  one  man's 
house  and  saw  the  shelves  in  a  room  where 
the  silk-worms  were  feeding  on  the  mulberry 
leaves.  In  a  month  they  will  have  attained 
their  growth,  will  not  eat  more,  and  will  find 
each  a  place  where  he  can  hang  himself  up 
and  spin  his  cocoon.  The  children  of  the 
community  have  learned  how  to  handle  the 
cocoons,  and  they  will  not  be  sent  as  before 
to  France.  It  is  hard,  though,  with  all  their 
no 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

industry,  to  get  ahead,  for  the  Turkish  Gov- 
ernment exacts  a  tax  of  thirty-thi'ee  and 
one-third  per  cent,  on  everything  they  raise. 
There  is  no  immediate  prospect  of  more 
colonies  or  individual  Jews  coming  into 
Palestine,  since  the  Turks  have  passed  a  law 
giving  no  passport  to  a  Jew  entering  the 
country  that  does  not  bind  him  to  leave  in 
three  months.  This,  of  course,  stops  the 
Zionist  movement  effectually  for  the  pres- 
ent. A^^lat  the  future  has  in  store  for  them 
who  can  sav  ?  It  does  not  seem  as  though 
anything  but  bitterest  Anti-Semite  perse- 
cution could  drive  Jews  from  Germany  and 
England  and  America  to  this  land,  dear  as 
it  must  be  to  them,  to  exchange  all  that 
Christian  civilization  offers  them  for  the 
barrenness  and  narrowness  and  intolerance 
awaiting  them  here,  if  the  doors  should  be 
again  opened. 

I  am  writing  now  under  an  oak — just  such 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

an  one  as  Absalom  was  entangled  in.  Across 
the  plain  through  which  the  Jordan  flows, 
hidden  in  rushes  and  irises  and  papyrus  reeds, 
rises  Mount  Hermon  with  its  clefts  filled  with 
snow,  with  the  Hill  of  Dan  at  its  foot  and 
Caesarea  Philippi,  and  the  sources  of  the 
Jordan  well  up  its  side.  There  we  are  to  go 
to-moiTow. 

The  Sources  of  the  Jordan, 
April  15. 

Yesterday,  Sunday,  was  a  real  day  of  rest. 
Breakfast  at  7.30  instead  of  4.30  and  5  and 
5.30  as  we  ordinarily  have  it.  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth  preached  under  a  great  oak  in  the 
morning,  and  I  in  the  evening  in  the  tent 
after  dinner.  This  morning  I  saw  the 
August  stars  overhead,  and  the  old  moon 
silver  decrescent  over  the  mountains  to  the 
eastward.  At  four  o'clock  the  deadly 
alarum  of  mule-bells,  dinner-bell,  and  tin- 
pans  went  ringing  through  the  camp,  and 

112 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

in  a  little  over  an  hour  we  were  off  for 
Caesarea  Philippi,  and  the  Castle  of  Banias. 
Half  an  hour  after  we  started  we  saw  the 
sun's  edge  over  the  mountain-ridge  we  were 
heading  for.  A  three-hour  ride  brought  us 
to  this  old  Roman  town  built  by  Herod, 
and  greatly  adorned  by  Philip  his  son,  and 
named  after  Caesar.  The  name  Cassarea 
Philippi  was  given  it  to  distinguish  it  from 
C^sarea  on  the  sea-coast.  It  is  a  poor  jum- 
ble of  a  village  to-day,  but  everywhere  are 
remnants  of  Roman  roads,  bridges,  pillars, 
and  nobly  carved  cornices.  Such  water  we 
have  not  seen  in  Palestine.  We  crossed  a 
dozen  streams  of  the  young  Jordan,  two  of 
them  quite  large,  and  lunched  at  the  main 
som'ce,  where  the  living  water  bursts  from 
the  rock  below  the  cave  of  Pan.  Here 
Hittites  and  Bedawi  of  the  desert ;  here 
Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Roman  have  felt  the  in- 
stinct and  impulse  of  worship.  There  are 
113 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

three  perfect  niches  in  the  rock  with  inscrip- 
tions to  the  God  Pan.  No  one  who  has  not 
toiled  over  the  hot  dry  wastes  of  this  thirsty 
land  can  appreciate  what  it  is  to  be  by  a 
spring  or  stream  of  living  water,  in  the 
music  of  its  rushing  and  the  shadow  of  the 
figs  and  olives,  the  willows  and  the  poplars, 
that  are  glad  as  we  to  be  near  it.  How 
often  have  we  spoken  to  each  other  of  what 
"  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  "  had  come  to 
mean  to  us,  and  the  longing  of  the  Psalm- 
ist's heart  when  he  cried  :  "  As  the  hart 
panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so  panteth 
my  soul  after  Thee,  O  God.  My  soul  thirst- 
eth  for  God,  for  the  living  God."  How  we 
drank  the  cool  water,  and  bathed  our  faces 
and  hands  and  wrists  in  the  running  stream. 
Five  of  us  had  climbed  the  steep  jagged 
mountain  1,500  feet  above  Caesarea  Phi- 
lippi,  over  rocks  as  sharp  as  the  thorns  that 
grow  about  them,  and  we  shall  never  forget 
114 


GROTTO    OF    PAN,    ONE    OF    THE    SOURCES 
OF    THE    JORDAN 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

what  the  Jordan''s  Spring  meant  to  us.  Our 
chmb  was  up  to  the  old  Crusader  Castle 
of  Banias,  the  most  splendid  fortification — 
massive,  extensive,  aspiring,  impregnable — I 
have  seen  in  the  East.  And  yet  it  was  not 
impregnable,  for  the  Moslems  won  it  from 
the  Crusaders.  The  titanic  enclosure  of 
towers  and  bulwarks  is  1,450  feet  from  east 
to  west,  and  350  from  north  to  south,  con- 
forming itself  to  the  mountain-top  as 
though  it  had  grown  there.  Caesarea  Phi- 
lippi  is  the  farthest  point  north  that  our 
Lord  reached  in  His  ministry,  and  here  one 
of  the  supreme  joys  of  His  life  came  to  Him 
when  asking  the  disciples  whom  the  people, 
and  whom  they  themselves,  thought  Him  to 
be,  found  in  Peter  a  man  who  had  begun  to 
understand  Him,  found  a  man  wlio  had  seen 
the  Divine  heart,  the  Divine  purpose. 
With  what  gladness  He  hailed  it,  declaring 
the  safety  of  His  Church  which  should  be 
115 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

founded  not  on  fallible  men,  nor  book,  nor 
creed,  nor  ritual,  but  on  men  of  His  spirit, 
who  had  found  God  and  goodness,  salvation 
and  the  spring  of  service  through  Him. 
That  Peter''s  idea  of  Christ's  work  was  im- 
perfect was  clearly  enough  shown  by  his 
protest  when  the  Lord  announced  plainly 
the  sufferings  and  death  that  awaited  Him 
in  Jerusalem  ;  but  Peter  came  to  see  it  all, 
and  became  a  living  foundation-stone  in  the 
Church  whose  law  of  self-sacrificing  love 
Jesus  enunciated  here  at  Caesarea  Philippi  ; 
here  where  fi'om  this  rock,  doubtless  in  sight 
of  Jesus  when  He  spoke,  flows  the  living 
water  of  the  Jordan.  "  Here  dies  another 
day,""  I  thought  as  I  saw  the  sun  dip  behind 
the  high  hills  of  Naphtali,  dies,  but  only  to 
live  in  vital,  happy  memories. 

Our  days  average  in  this  way.  We  are 
called  at  four  or  five  oHock,  according  to 
the  length  of  the  day's  trip.     Breakfast  in  a 

ii6 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

half  hour.  Our  bags  must  have  been  packed 
before  breakfast,  for  by  the  time  we  are 
through  our  tents  are  down  and  being 
packed  by  the  muleteers.  Our  horses  are 
waiting,  champing,  and  biting  each  other 
and  squealing.  On  go  our  saddle-bags,  in 
which  we  caiTv  our  rubber  clothes,  Bae- 
dekers, cameras,  field-glasses,  and  odds  and 
ends  like  surgeon's  kit,  and  water-bottle  and 
lemons.  I  always  carry  some  dry  bread 
and  crackers  and  chocolate  and  nuts  in  my 
pockets,  and  about  nine  o'clock  munch  away 
in  a  lunch  about  half  a  mile  long.  By  ten 
or  eleven  o'clock  we  have  our  noon  halt,  al- 
ways in  some  spot  planned  in  advance,  with 
two  tents  open  on  one  side,  or  under  some 
trees.  Lunch  is  spread  on  a  white  cloth 
with  i-ugs  around  it.  Afterwards  we  read  or 
write,  and  sleep,  or  talk  and  sing  for  two  or 
three  hours.  Then  as  many  moi-e  hours  on 
horseback  laboriously  picking  our  way  over 
117 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

endless  bowlders,  often  dismounting  and 
leading  the  horses  in  unusually  bad  bits  of 
road ;  but  often,  too,  when  we  find  an  open 
place,  having  a  good  canter.  This  after- 
noon, as  we  came  to  camp,  four  of  us  had 
the  maddest  kind  of  a  race,  as  fast  as  our 
horses  could  run.  It  is  genuine  gladness 
that  invades  our  hearts  when  we  see  the 
camp  gleaming  in  the  distance.  Tea  waits 
us  on  boxes  with  camp-stools  around  them 
in  the  square  court  of  the  camp.  Then  a 
general  washing  up  and  rest,  sometimes  a 
swim,  though  too  rarely.  Dinner  lasts  over 
an  hour,  and  is  a  really  remarkable  affair. 
The  kitchen  tent  has  two  or  three  little  char- 
coal fires  with  grates  and  ovens,  and  yet  a 
dinner  fit  for  a  king  is  always  ready  on  time. 
Soup  and  roast  and  vegetables,  and  birds  or 
chicken,  salad,  pastry  or  pudding,  with  des- 
sert of  nuts,  figs,  raisins,  and  coffee.  Then 
announcement  of  programme  for  next  day, 
ii8 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

and  a  general  cheer  or  groan  according  to 
the  hour  of  rising.  Then  prayers  with  a 
hymn  before  and  after.  We  take  turns  in 
leading.  A  few  will  write  afterwards  for 
awhile  in  the  big  tents,  but  all  are  in  bed 
generally  by  nine  o'clock.  Days  when  we 
are  to  visit  special  places  of  interest  the 
travelling  is  arranged  so  as  to  allow  plenty 
of  time.  We  have  a  palanquin  with  us  all 
the  while,  but  it  has  rarely  been  in  use.  A 
funny  kind  of  palanquin  passed  us  the  other 
day.  A  Moslem  rode  on  the  humps  of  his 
camel  with  his  two  wives  each  in  a  private 
box  on  the  right  and  left.  Their  goods 
were  strapped  in  one  way  and  another  all 
over  the  camel.  The  master  bowed  every 
second  with  the  big  beasfs  swing,  and  the 
women  listed  heavily  to  port  or  starboard  as 
the  ship  of  the  desert  rolled  along  its  way. 
I  have  the  crated  family  safely  tucked  away 
in  my  camera  F.  O.  B. 
119 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

April  15. 
Westward  all  day,  up  and  down  the  deep- 
est declivities  and  defiles,  once  for  a  while 
on  the  old  Roman  road  which  ran  from 
Caesarea  Philippi  to  Tyre,  most  of  the  time 
single  file  along  the  caravan  route  among 
loose  stones,  in  beds  of  brooks,  winding 
around  the  edges  of  gullies  with  no  more 
than  the  narrowest  footing  for  the  horses. 
Occasionally  there  will  be  a  double  path  so 
that  we  can  ride  side  by  side,  but  all  in  a 
string  is  the  rule.  Zigzagging  up  a  hill 
sometimes  brings  us  all  in  sight  above  and 
below  each  other  like  the  levels  of  a  Swiss 
railroad.  My  horse  went  down  on  his  knees 
and  bit  the  road  so  suddenly  this  afternoon 
that  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  turn  a 
somersault  over  his  head,  but  as  I  came  down 
squarely  on  both  feet  it  was  only  a  little 
extra  thrown  in  or  thrown  off  for  a  change. 
As  this  is  the  third  time  my  faithful  steed 
1 20 


A  FAMILY'  CARRVALI, 
NEAR  DOTH AN 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

has  broken  faith  with  me,  and  ahnost  bones 
too,  I  have  decided  to  change  him  for  an- 
other. 

We  camped  this  evening  below  one  of 
the  old  Crusaders'  castles,  a  wonderful  old 
eyrie,  crowning  a  hill,  almost  a  moun- 
tain, and  guarding  the  pass  we  go  through 
to-morrow  on  our  way  to  Tyre.  I  do  not 
see  how  anything  but  starvation  could 
reduce  such  fortresses.  The  ruins  of  the 
Crusaders""  strongholds  are  among  the  first 
of  the  monuments  of  this  land  in  extent 
and  fascination.  What  did  the  great  Cru- 
sading Ages  accomplish  ?  Little  here,  but 
who  can  estimate  what  their  enthusiasm  did 
for  a  formal  Christianity  that  was  swept  and 
shaken  by  their  excitement,  and  that  in  its 
subsequent  defeat  and  in  the  fall  of  Con- 
stantinople was  inestimably  enriched  by  the 
treasures  long  forgotten  of  the  Classic  East, 
receiving  an  intellectual  re-birth  or  renais- 

121 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

sauce  which  was  itself  re-born  morally  in  the 
Reformation. 

April  17. 
We  had  a  midnight  excitement  more 
amusing  than  alarming.  A  mule  that  broke 
his  tether  got  tangled  in  the  ropes  of  two 
tents,  and  half  demolished  them  both  before 
he  could  be  corralled.  The  shouting  failed 
to  arouse  the  distant  muleteers,  and  a  pistol 
was  fired  that  brought  the  camp  up  stand- 
ing. The  mule  and  the  rest  of  us  finally 
quieted  down.  Down,  down,  we  steadily 
rode  this  morning  until  the  Mediterranean 
and  Tyre  were  before  us.  How  are  the 
mighty  fallen  !  The  splendor  of  Tyre  is  a 
pathetic  memory.  Huddles  of  columns  are 
on  the  beach  and,  on  the  line  of  the  outside 
breakers,  send  the  foam  flying  up  in  the  air. 
Pieces  of  mosaic  pavement  were  found  by 
several  in  the  sand.  The  line  of  the  splen- 
did   mole,    so    large    that,   like    the    Ponte 

122 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

Vecchio  at  Florence,  it  was  covered  with 
shops,  is  marked  by  shoals  and  white-crested 
waves  to-day.  Ezekiel,  in  his  26th,  27th, 
and  28th  chapters,  uttered  his  forebodings, 
all  too  well  substantiated.  Two  English- 
women have  the  only  lighthouse  here,  and 
do  their  best  in  the  dark.  We  spent  a  half 
hour  in  their  school  with  their  native  help- 
ers and  eighty  or  ninety  girls  and  boys. 

SiDON,  April  18. 
A  day  of  wonderful  beauty  and  all  hearts 
happy.  The  Mediterranean  is  like  a  sap- 
phire shading  out  of  the  sky.  My  first  de- 
light in  a  skylark  has  come  back  to  me 
again  and  again  ;  when  at  Stonehenge  I 
looked  everyway,  like  Wordsworth  after  the 
cuckoo,  till  I  saw  him  far  overhead.  Tenny- 
son sang  of  him  : 

"  'Till  drowned  in  yonder  living  blue 
The  lark  becomes  a  sightless  song." 

123 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

Mr.  Hoskins,  of  our  mission  in  Beyrout, 
met  us  here  like  Paul's  friends  who  came 
down  to  greet  him  at  Appii  Forum,  and 
brought  a  bundle  of  accumulated  letters. 
Here  at  Sidon,  Paul  himself  once  stopped  to 
cheer  the  Christians.  What  a  place  it  must 
have  been  in  its  prime  !  Not  a  hill  or  val- 
ley, not  a  mountain-side  or  wadj  near  it  that 
does  not  bear  signs  of  her  life.  This  im- 
mense plain  is  filled  with  sarcophagi.  Dr. 
Torrey,  of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund, 
whom  we  met  in  Jerusalem,  dug  up  some 
treasures  a  little  while  ago  of  greatest  in- 
terest and  value,  but  swiftly  buried  them 
again,  for  the  government  is  a  good  deal  of 
a  dog  in  a  manger ;  and,  although  it  does 
not  value  these  antiquities,  will  not  lose 
them.  Our  mission  gave  us  a  reception  in 
the  afternoon  with  some  stirring  speeches, 
and  tea,  and  unspeakably  good  cakes.  It 
was  in  their  main  room,  which  is  an  old 
124 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

Crusaders"'  arched  hall  with  walls  five  feet 
thick.  Two  of  the  teachers  are  sisters  of  a 
young  man  who  attends  Brick  Church,  and 
of  the  pastor  of  the  German  Church  in 
Bethlehem.  These  teachers'  faces — faces  of 
young  Christian  men  and  women — seem  of 
a  different  nationality  ;  almost  of  another 
order  of  being  from  those  about  them.  Here 
is  the  kindling  hope  of  the  future,  a  selected 
seed  for  new  sowing.  They  show  in  a  pro- 
phetic way  that  warms  the  heart  what  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  can  do  in  transforming  and 
transfiguring  life,  and  are  the  first-fruits  of 
the  harvest  that  is  bound  to  come.  In  the 
evening  the  hall  was  filled,  and  five  of  us 
made  short  speeches,  Dr.  Ford  interpreting. 
It  was  hard  work.  We  would  speak  a  sen- 
tence or  two  and  then,  while  it  was  being 
interpreted,  wish  we  had  said  something  else. 
It  was  a  kind  of  compound  fracture  of  an 
idea,  with  mortification  instantly  setting  in. 
125 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

On  this  Sidon  field  one  could  rest  the  case 
for  Foreign  Missions,  so  fine  is  the  organiza- 
tion, so  thorough  the  equipment,  so  sensible 
and  practical  the  management,  and  so  en- 
couraging the  results.  Part  of  the  education 
is  industrial,  and  the  quality  of  the  work  in 
masonry,  carpentry,  cabinet  work,  tailoring, 
shoemaking  astonished  us  all.  It  is  like  the 
word,  "  And  beholding  the  man  which  was 
healed  standing  with  them  they  could  say 
nothing  against  it."  It  is  educating  the 
whole  man  by  a  full-orbed  Gospel,  and  show- 
ing the  Oriental  world  an  integral  human 
development  it  has  known  nothing  about. 
Sidon,  like  Zahlah,  is  really  preparatory  to 
the  college  at  Beyrout,  which  crowns  the 
Christian  work  of  our  Presbyterian  missions 
in  Syria,  and  commands  the  admiration  of 
friend  and  foe.  The  buildings  thrilled  me 
not  alone  because  I  belong  to  the  Presbyte- 
rian Church  but  because  I  belong  to  Brick 
126 


^% 


M 


?S[1-.  .  "  iwr 


PRESIDENT     BLISS    OF    THE    SYRIAN     PROTESTANT 
COLLEGE,    BEIRUT 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

Church,  for  these  noble  moulds  and  matrixes 
of  a  new  civilization  are  made  of  the  blood 
of  men  I  know  and  love,  and  are  here  to-day 
because  of  the  past  gifts  and  the  present  care 
of  Dr.  Stuart  Dodge  and  Mr.  W.  K  and 
Madame  Dodge,  and  Mr.  J&sup  and  Mr. 
Maitland,  and  Dr.  Dennis,  and  other  devoted 
men.  The  undimmed  eye  of  Dr.  Bliss,  the 
president,  flashes  as  he  tells  of  stiiiggles  and 
successes  and  hopes  yet  to  be  realized.  In 
the  fine  chapel  I  preached  to  the  students 
Sunday  morning,  and  my  heart  was  excited 
with  hope  as  I  thought  of  the  part  these 
men  from  Egypt,  Algeria,  and  Greece,  from 
Arabia  and  Asia  Minor  and  Persia,  and  who 
can  say  where  else,  are  to  play  in  the  years 
to  come.  No  one  can  see  the  kind  of  work 
they  are  doing,  the  new  bodies  physical  ex- 
ercise is  giving  them,  the  new  standards,  the 
mental  training  they  are  getting,  and  wide 
horizons,  and  Christian  motives,  and  doubt 
127 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

for  a  moment  that  they  are  to  be  the  leaders 
of  their  day  and  generation.  From  the  Ht- 
tle  handful  of  a  dozen  beginners  in  some 
rented  room  the  College,  in  less  than  forty 
years,  has  grown  to  its  noble  proportions. 
No  one  can  forecast  its  future,  for  it  is  grow- 
ing not  merely  in  numbers  but  in  percentage 
of  increase,  and  in  ever-widening  fame  and 
deepening  respect.  No  college  I  know  of 
offers  a  more  encouraging  outlook  for  in- 
vestment of  money  for  the  Kingdom  than 
this  one.  Its  buildings  are  fairly  abreast  of 
its  needs,  but  it  is  crying  for  a  larger  en- 
dowment, that  the  teaching  force  may  be  in- 
creased. The  best  work  of  a  professor  for 
his  students  cannot  be  done  when  he  has 
classes  of  sixty  and  seventy-five.  The  maxi- 
mum efficiency  for  mental  training,  and  es- 
pecially for  personal  influence,  is  reached 
when  a  man  has  classes  of  about  thirty.  The 
need  and  the  promise  of  the  Beyrout  College 
128 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

are  far  and  away  beyond  those  of  any  of  our 
well-known  home  colleges  to-day,  for  from 
this  beacon  and  from  Robert  College  this 
Eastern  world  must  find  its  way  out  of  dark- 
ness. The  editor  of  the  chief  Greek  news- 
paper has  just  written  an  article  summon- 
ing all  Greeks  to  awake  to  the  meaning  and 
value  of  the  Syrian  Protestant  College,  and 
support  it  in  every  way.  The  Medical  Col- 
lege gives  men  an  unparalleled  opportunity 
— not  only  because  of  the  distinction  of  the 
faculty,  but  because  the  students  practically 
become  interns  two  years  earlier  than  in 
America,  working  in  the  hospital,  and  being 
junior  assistants  in  all  kinds  of  operations. 
A  dozen  of  them  were  with  Dr.  Post  yester- 
day morning,  when  he  literally  dissected  a 
young  woman's  forearm,  removing  a  colloid 
tumor  that  was  woven  among  tlie  muscles 
and  tendons,  and  had  eaten  into  the  bone. 
I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  man  living  who 
i2g 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

from  first  to  last  could  have  operated  more 
swiftly  and  skilfully  than  Dr.  Post.  A  lit- 
tle longer  and  it  would  have  been  necessary 
to  amputate  the  arm,  and  that  would  have 
meant  celibacy  and  poverty  and  obscurity 
for  the  poor  girl.  Then  I  saw  Dr.  Webster 
remove  a  cataract  from  a  blind  man''s  eye. 
When  the  doctot  moved  his  fingers  after- 
wards before  the  man"'s  face  and  he  said 
he  could  see,  the  thought  came  instantly, 
"  Lord,  that  I  might  receive  my  sight."  Is 
not  such  Christian  work,  multiplied  all  over 
the  world,  work  of  minds  and  hearts  and 
hands  that  owe  their  impulse  and  skill  to 
the  life  and  love  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  our  Lord's  words,  "  And  greater 
works  than  these  shall  ye  do  *"  ?  Only  from 
Christian  roots  are  such  fruits  growing. 
Men  sometimes  think,  when  they  see  the  vast 
temples  of  the  elder  days  and  the  Cathedrals 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  religion  must  have 
130 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

lost  much  power  because  she  builds  so  few 
shrines  to-day  that  can  compare  with  them. 
But  let  them  learn  what  the  word  means, 
"  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice,"  and 
add  to  the  buildings  to-day  where  men  wor- 
ship, those  equally  sacred  structures  where 
the  sick  are  healed,  the  orphans  are  trained, 
the  blind  and  deaf  and  dumb,  the  aged  and 
insane  and  recreant  are  ministered  unto,  and 
they  will  see  how  intrusive  and  extrusive 
has  been  the  growth  of  intelligent  Christian 
devotion,  how  close  to  the  ways  of  Christ  His 
people  have  been  coming,  and  this  I  say 
with  the  wonders  of  Baalbec  still  fresh  in 
my  mind. 

After  being  two  days  in  Beyi'out  we  made 
an  excursion  to  Damascus.  It  was  planned 
to  spend  five  days  there  and  at  Baalbec, 
but  I  cut  a  day  off  Damascus  to  have  at 
Beyrout,  preferring  more  of  the  roots  of 
the  future  and  less  of  the  ruins  of  the  past. 
131 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

The  ride  over  the  Lebanon  mountains  and 
up  the  Coele-Syrian  valley  is  magnificent, 
fairly  "  its  own  excuse  for  being."  The 
best  of  Damascus  to  me  was  its  distant  view 
as  we  came  to  it  embowered  in  the  orchards 
that  spring  fi'om  Abana  and  Pharpar.  No 
wonder  Naaman  could  not  see  how  one  could 
compare  with  them  the  low  muddy  Jordan 
flowing  through  its  fruitless  land  to  the 
Dead  Sea.  From  the  hill  on  the  west  we 
had  a  view  of  the  city  in  the  sunset  light 
never  to  be  forgotten.  Its  buildings  were 
white  with  pink  and  blue  tones  gleaming  in 
the  evening  glow.  It  looked  like  warm- 
tinted  marble  set  in  malachite,  or,  to  use  an 
every-day  summer  figure,  like  a  tennis  racket 
lying  on  the  grass,  for  it  is  really  that  shape, 
quite  round,  with  the  long  street  called 
Straight  corresponding  to  a  projecting 
handle.  But  near  by — what  a  disillusion  ! 
— dirty  stone  houses,  mud  walls,  stucco  and 
132 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

cheapness,  dogs  and  swirls  of  dust,  and  evil 
smells.  Its  bazaars  are  countless  in  the  arch- 
covered  streets  with  their  arched  roofs.  But 
the  very  variety  at  last  is  monotonous.  Da- 
mascus is  the  oldest  city  in  the  world,  but 
you  would  not  dream  it.  Its  advantages 
have  preserved  it  through  every  change  of 
dynasty.  All  its  characteristic  Orientalism 
can  be  matched  on  a  smaller  but  far  more 
animated  scale  at  Cairo.  Wa  did  our  duty 
for  several  hot  hours,  seeing  the  great 
Mosque,  the  Tomb  of  Saladin  and  Fatima, 
the  House  of  Ananias,  and  the  place  where 
Paul  was  let  down  from  the  wall  in  a  basket. 
I  refused  to  look  at  the  rope  itself,  having 
a  few  wisps  of  unfrayed  self-respect  left. 
"  The  street  called  Straight "  is  without 
doubt  a  genuine  antique,  for  where  is  there 
another  in  the  East  ?  Four  hours  by  train 
and  four  by  carriage,  and  one  of  the  prime 
events  of  the  journey,  not  to  say  of  a  life- 
133 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

time,  came  in  Baalbec.  I  had  expected 
some  great  ruins,  some  tumble  of  pillars, 
some  huge  stones,  an  uncouth  and  vaster 
Stonehenge.  I  found  a  conception  of  un- 
paralleled grandeur  and  beauty,  blending  the 
stupendous  with  the  exquisite  in  undreamed 
ways.  Who  can  say  how  far  back  it  goes, 
in  what  twilight  of  the  world  those  earliest 
stones  were  laid!  No  wonder  the  Arabs 
say  it  was  begun  in  the  days  of  Cain  and  is 
older  than  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  that 
slants  were  the  first  builders  and  the  belie- 
moths  were  their  beasts  of  burden.  Think 
of  a  stone  still  in  the  quarry  fourteen  feet 
high,  fourteen  feet  broad,  and  seventy-four 
feet  long.  It  makes  one  feel  like  Cassius 
peeping  about  under  the  huge  legs  of  Caesar 
and  wondering  what  order  of  men  these 
were,  whose  ruined  work  leaves  us  quite 
breathless  for  amazement.  The  deposits  of 
history  read  like  a  geological  cross  section, 
134 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

but  the  development  of  the  Akropohs,  or 
rather  the  shrine,  the  temple,  seems  the 
work  of  inspiration,  such  is  the  unity  of  its 
age-long  growth.  See  the  hill  sloping  north 
and  south  3,800  feet  above  the  sea,  flanked 
east  and  west  across  the  luxuriant  valley  by 
the  Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon  ranges. 
Look  south  up  the  gradual  marble  stairway 
approaching  the  portico  through  the  colon- 
nade of  marble  pillars,  through  the  great 
central  door  into  the  hexagon,  with  its 
glorious  pool  and  fountain  reached  by  four 
descending  steps  of  marble.  Still  look  on 
across  the  water  and  up  the  steps  through 
another  arched  and  pillared  doorway  into 
the  vast  pantheon  with  its  twelve  shrines 
for  the  twelve  gods  alternately  semicircular 
and  rectangular  growing  out  of  the  central 
court,  with  the  altar  of  sacrifice  and  in  the 
middle  a  glorious  fountain,  one  of  whose 
huge  marble  basins  hud  been  unearthed  by 
135 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

the  German  Exploration  Society  only  two 
days  before  we  were  there — basins  with 
balustrades  of  marble  enriched  with  heads 
of  griffins  and  fauns  and  cupids  with  flower- 
wreaths.  Look  still  southward  and  upward 
beyond  this  great  Court  of  the  Gods,  up 
the  sweeping  marble  ways  to  the  crowning 
temple  of  the  sun,  Helio-polis  Baalbec, 
whose  glory  it  was  to  have  no  room,  no 
chamber  hidden  from  the  sun,  whose  walls 
were  pillars  between  which  the  mountains 
and  skies  were  framed,  whose  bases  even 
towered  above  the  worshippers'  heads,  and 
w^hose  capitals  blossomed  against  the  blue 
of  the  heavens,  and  where  all  day  long  the 
sun  sought  his  seeking  worshippers  and  all 
night  long  the  stars  sent  down  their  light. 
Add  to  the  cyclopean  vastness  of  this  gran- 
ite and  marble  every  conceivable  delicacy  in 
relief  of  acanthus  and  lotus,  of  geometric 
pattern  and  interlacing  vines  and  wreaths ; 
136 


THE    TEMPLE    OF    THE    SUN, 
BAALBEC 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

people  the  niches  with  the  figures  of  the 
gods  and  goddesses  ;  gild  the  capitals  again 
with  the  gold  of  votive  gifts  ;  fill  the  air 
with  incense  and  the  courts  with  worshippers, 
and  an  incomparable  and  indisputable  testi- 
mony is  here  for  the  hunger  of  the  human 
heart  for  God  and  of  its  incompleteness  and 
restlessness.  If  in  ignorance,  if  in  cruelty, 
if  in  ways  superstitious  and  unworthy,  and 
in  symbols  impossible  to  us  God  was  adored. 
He  was  yet  adored.  He  was  yet  worshipped, 
and  can  we  think  that  anyone  who  sought 
his  God  in  sincerity  and  truth,  true  to  the 
light  that  lightened  him,  worshipped  in  vain 
or  departed  unblessed  ?  We  saw  the  sun 
set  on  the  ruins,  lighting  them  with  fires 
of  copper  and  amber,  while  the  mountains 
beyond  glowed  in  violet  and  gold.  Swiftly 
the  chill  of  the  night  fell  when  the  daylight 
was  gone  and  moonlight  and  mystery  were 
on  the  ruins,  and  "  our  noisy  years  seomed 
137 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

moments  in  the  being  of  the  Eternal  silence." 
It  is  not  at  Rome  that  one  feels  what  that 
imperial  power  must  have  been  that  ruled 
the  world,  but  in  such  remote  places  as  this 
Syrian  valley  across  the  Lebanon  and  far 
away  in  the  Land  of  Bashan.  Straight  to 
Great  Britain  she  thrust  out  her  roads  and 
far  south  and  east,  and  the  hoof- beats  of 
her  horses  in  these  far-off  lands  rang  like 
the  pulse-throbs  that  told  the  strength  of 
her  iron  heart.  One  h"undred  and  fifty  miles 
a  dav  her  chariots  and  horsemen  could  make 
on  her  roads  when  the  message  demanded  it 
— so  Gibbon  says — and  it  must  be  true, 
though  travellers  to-day  can  hardly  believe 
it.  Far  north  in  the  Hauran  are  whole 
cities  she  built,  with  temples,  market-places, 
amphitheatres,  and  artificial  lakes  for  naval 
combats.  Was  ever  such  power  concentrated 
that  radiated  so  far,  with  such  unwasting 
force !  Yet  to-day  Roman  ruins  lie  here 
138 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

between  Phoenician  and  Saracenic,  for  the 
pure-blooded  Northmen  were  too  much  for 
her  degenerate  sons. 

Two  more  days  at  Beyrout  went  into  the 
details  of  College  and  Hospital  work.  An 
Arab  dinner  was  given  to  some  of  us,  which 
was  a  new  experience,  and  proved  to  be  a 
terrible  test  which  not  all  could  abide.  One 
dish  called  "  Kibby,"  made  of  meat  and 
grain  and  onions,  and  I  dare  not  say  what 
else,  pounded  for  hours  in  a  mortar  and 
baked  with  oil  in  a  flat  tin-dish,  looked  like 
chocolate  caramels  cut  into  squares,  but  it 
did  not  taste  like  it.  They  tell  me  it  is  to 
this  dish  the  wise  man  alluded  when  he  said 
that  if  a  fool  were  mixed  with  wheat  and 
brayed  in  a  mortar  yet  would  not  the  flavor 
of  his  foolishness  depart  from  him. 

The  faculty  of  the  College  gave  us  all 
a  reception  the  evening  before  we  sailed, 
which  came  to  a  glowing  point  of  connnon 
139 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

happiness  when  one  of  our  men  presented  to 
the  mission  a  new  printing-press  as  a  gift 
from  our  company  and  the  churches  repre- 
sented. We  had  learned  that  work  had  been 
shpping  back,  scores  of  thousands  of  Bibles 
being  unprinted  and  orders  unfilled  through 
the  hopeless  breaking  down  of  one  of  the 
older  presses,  and  that  a  man  was  to  be  sent 
to  America  to  raise  money  for  a  new  one. 
We  told  them  to  order  the  kind  they  needed, 
and  save  the  time  and  money  the  messenger 
would  have  cost.  Everyone  who  has  any 
stock  in  the  new  press  may  rejoice  in  the 
pure  light  it  will  be  throwing  through  this 
dark  land  long  after  the  giver''s  hand  is  cold. 
Past  Cyprus,  westward  on  the  Great  Sea, 
we  steamed  past  Rhoda  and  Patmos,  and 
made  our  first  stop  at  Samos,  where  some 
of  the  earliest  of  the  serious  nautical  experi- 
ments were  made  that  resulted  in  sending 
colonies  to  Crete  and  Thrace  and  Greece 
140 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

and  Italy.  I  hear  that  Pythagoras  was  born 
there,  and  that  Cleopatra  spent  some  idle 
days  there,  and  that  little  has  happened 
since.  The  bay  was  beautiful,  and  the  little 
town  clean  and  bright.  The  Mediterranean 
has  been  in  its  mildest  May  mood,  roaring 
as  gently  as  any  sucking-dove.  We  saw  but 
little  of  Smyrna  as  we  took  train  an  hour 
after  arrival  for  the  village  nearest  to  Ephe- 
sus.  I  expected  little,  but  found  much. 
And  first  of  all  the  storks  !  What  fun  it 
was  to  see  them  sitting  on  their  nests  or 
standing  on  one  foot,  on  the  tops  of  old 
chimnevs  or  ruined  minarets,  looking  ex- 
actly like  their  pictures,  and  probably  think- 
ing of  Strasburg  or  Holland,  like  restless 
people.  They  were  tame  enough,  and  flew 
over  our  heads  almost  in  clubbing  distance. 
Then  the  multitude  of  broken  marbles, 
hands  and  heads,  acanthus  leaves  from  cap- 
itals, bits  of  mosaic  pavement,  and  frag- 
141 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

ments  of  cornices.  They  lay  along  the  road- 
side, in  the  fields,  were  collected  in  piles  in 
the  ruins,  and  were  built  into  the  walls  of 
the  houses  as  though  there  never  had  been 
a  museum  or  a  rabid  collector.  The  lowest 
of  all  falls  has  been  Diana's.  Her  ruins  are 
most  pathetic.  Where  other  spots  have  been 
pushed  up  in  geologic  changes  her  temple 
site  has  been  depressed,  and  a  poor,  marshy, 
grassy,  frog-croaking  hollow,  with  not  a  sign 
of  distinction,  not  a  standing  column  even, 
is  all  that  is  left  to  mark  the  spot  where 
once  was  such  magnificence  and  men  made 
the  air  ring  with  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the 
Ephesians."  Not  far  from  this  spot  are  the 
ruins  of  the  Custom-house  of  Ephesus,  with 
the  long  quays  once  alive  with  her  com- 
merce and  arms  and  fashion,  now  knowing 
not  a  ripple  but  that  of  the  waving  wheat, 
for  the  sea  is  a  mile  and  a  half  away.  The 
gymnasium  and  market-place  are  but  a  short 
142 


BULL  S     HEAD     BATH,    OR     FOUNTAIN 
AT     KPHESUS 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

distance  from  this  spot,  once  the  port  of  the 
city,  and  must  have  been  places  of  incred- 
ible beauty.  Such  colonnades  of  white  mar- 
ble, such  wreathed  bulls  and  torsos  of  lions 
and  wrecks  of  human  figures,  and  fountain- 
basins  and  water-ways  and  Greek  inscrip- 
tions, all  a  dazzle  of  glistening  light  in  the 
brilliant  noon-day. 

A  little  away  is  the  street  that  led  from 
the  Amphitheatre  to  the  sea,  a  noble  and 
exciting  ruin  to-day,  as  one  looks  along  its 
white  length,  paved  with  smooth  stones  in 
the  middle  between  rows  of  marble  pillars, 
many  of  whose  bases  are  in  place,  flanked 
by  arcades  with  mosaic  floors  for  foot- 
passengers.  Then  up  broad  marble  ap- 
proaches through  courts  and  shrines  to  the 
Amphitheatre  hollowed  in  the  mountain- 
side and  facing  the  sea.  It  must  have  seat- 
ed sixty  thousand  people.  The  stone  col- 
umns supporting  the  arena  are  yet  standing 
143 


LETTERS   FROM   EGYPT  AND  PALESTINE 

like  a  little  Avhite  forest.  The  19th  and 
20th  chapters  of  Acts  are  full  of  memories 
of  Ephesus,  and  thoughts  of  St.  John  and  of 
Mary  the  Mother  of  Jesus  and  of  Timothy 
come  swiftly.  Here  Paul  wrote  his  first  let- 
ter to  the  Corinthians  and  to  these  Ephe- 
sians,  that  most  majestic  and  heavenly  of  all 
the  Epistles.  But  her  light  grew  dim. 
"  Unto  the  Angel  of  the  Church  of  Ephe- 
sus."" How  strangely  the  words  sound  here. 
Alas  for  the  words  that  came  true  and 
the  candlestick  departed.  The  Church  of 
Smyrna  is  the  only  one  of  the  seven  whose 
light  still  burns,  with  two-thirds  of  its  in- 
habitants Christians  to-day. 

At  4.30  this  morning  we  were  rung  up  to 
undergo  at  the  Dardanelles  a  medical  ex- 
amination, lest  some  foreign  germs  should 
be  brought  to  the  Sick  Man  of  the  East.  If 
he  did  but  know  on  Avhich  side  the  fears 
really  were  !  The  Sea  of  Marmora  has  been 
144 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

all  day  long  a  sea  of  glass  and  the  air  quite 
as  the  first  of  May  in  a  happier  clime.  It 
might  have  been  called  The  Marble  Sea 
from  its  polished  surface  instead  of  from  the 
quarries  that  surround  it.  The  approach 
up  the  Bosphorus  to  Constantine's  city  gives 
the  traveller  the  impression  of  all  the  choic- 
est and,  after  all  other  impressions,  the  one 
to  be  cherished.  Everywhere  the  city  seems 
to  be  climbing  from  the  water,  where  its 
walls  and  towers  are  reflected,  up  to  a  sky- 
line broken  by  palaces  and  mosques,  pierced 
by  the  slender  minarets  of  the  living  and  the 
cypress  spear-points  of  the  dead.  The  city 
grows  vaster  and  vaster  as  you  approach. 
Far  as  the  eye  can  see  it  reaches  out  over 
the  hills  and  along  the  shores.  The  Golden 
Horn,  which  pierces  the  city  like  a  flashing 
scimitar,  is  alive  with  steamers  and  ships, 
ferry-boats  and  caiques  (are  caiques  here  and 
kayaks  in  Greenland  etymological  rela- 
ys 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT  AND   PALESTINE 

tives  ? ).  Though  most  of  the  houses  are 
wooden,  the  impression  is  of  a  city  of  stone 
and  marble.  The  water  is  beautifully  clear 
and  the  sky  as  blue  as  at  Naples.  There  is 
no  fairer  sight  East  or  West.  The  Mediter- 
ranean has  run  through  the  Dardanelles  into 
its  miniature  self — the  Sea  of  Marmora ; 
and  the  Sea  of  Marmora  has  been  drawn 
into  the  narrow  ribbon  of  the  Bosphorus 
that  links  it  with  the  old  Euxine,  the  new 
Black  Sea,  and  here,  where  from  the  Bos- 
phorus the  Golden  Horn  is  pushed  deep  into 
the  land,  the  ancient  Byzantium  was  built, 
old  as  Rome.  What  a  place  for  a  city,  with 
^larmora  on  the  South,  the  Bosphorus  on 
the  east,  and  the  Golden  Horn  on  the 
north  !  No  wonder  it  withstood  twentv-one 
out  of  twentv-three  times  when  it  was  be- 
sieged. No  wonder  Persians,  Macedonians, 
Spai-tans,  Athenians,  Romans,  Arabs,  Turks, 
and  Christians  have  fought  for  it,  and  Rus- 
146 


1 

T 

i^Lj 

BHr  ' ' 

4- 

^9 

Hpi. 

-■- 

^!jf  3 

I^^^Hti   '^ 

I- 

1 

1 

] 

LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

sia  hankers  and  hopes  to-day.  Demos- 
thenes's  great  oration  was  to  persuade  the 
Athenians  to  help  it  against  Phihp.  Con- 
stantine  made  it  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  called  it  New  Rome,  the  name 
surviving  in  Roumelia.  Constantine  de- 
clared for  Christianity,  but  evidently  was  a 
good  while  in  reaching  a  conclusion.  "  In 
hoc  s'lgno  "  must  have  been  a  later  revela- 
tion, for  like  the  Vicar  of  Bray  he  had  an 
open  mind  as  he  faced  his  official  future, 
calling  his  three  great  churches  Sophia, 
Irene,  and  Anastasis,  which  were  equally 
fitted  to  be  the  names  of  shrines  of  Chris- 
tian or  pagan  worship.  San  Sophia  looks 
less  of  a  mosque  on  the  outside  than  some 
of  the  others  in  Constantinople, — but  inside 
— it  is  incomparable.  Its  dome  seems  loftier 
and  vaster  than  St.  Peter's.  It  is  as  though 
it  were  floated  on  air,  so  far  away  it  is  from 
earth,  so  independent,  so  unsupported.  The 
147 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

straight  flat  effects  of  Egyptian  temples,  the 
low  triangles  of  the  Greek,  the  pointed  arch 
of  the  Gothic  cathedrals  have  their  own 
peculiar  power  over  the  mind,  but  here  it 
is  the  dome  of  the  sky  that  has  filled  the 
builder's  thought,  filling  the  beholder's  eye, 
and  thrilling  his  heart  as  though  hemisphere 
after  hemisphere  were  piled  on  each  other  to 
hold  up  the  circle  of  the  heavens.  Through 
the  gilt  in  many  a  place  are  seen  the  out- 
lines of  Christian  Saints  and  deep  in  many  a 
stone  is  sunk  the  cross,  carrying  the  heavy 
heart  back  to  the  time  when  the  Crescent 
had  no  place  here,  but  carrying  it  on  too  in 
hope  that  the  words,  "  Thy  Kingdom,  O 
Christ,  is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  Thy 
truth  endureth  for  all  generations,""  words 
still  standing  on  the  walls  of  the  great 
mosque  of  Damascus,  shall  there  and  here 
find  certain  fulfilment.  Few  of  us  dreamed 
of  the  treasures  awaiting  us  in  the  Royal 
148 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

Museum,  which  the  Sultan  has  of  late  years 
been  befriending  to  glorious  advantage. 
The  art  treasures  of  the  past  that  are  yet 
undiscovered  are  almost  all  in  lands  under 
his  red  flag.  If  what  he  has  collected  here 
is  any  fair  first-fruits  of  the  harvest  yet  to 
be  reaped  after  deep  ploughing,  the  Mu- 
seums of  Europe  will  have  a  formidable 
rival.  Here  is  the  first  Jewish  inscription 
ever  discovered.  It  is  called  the  Siloam 
Stone,  and  records  the  meeting  of  the  work- 
men who  approached  each  other  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  tunnel  that  brought  the 
water  into  the  Pool  of  Siloam.  Here  is  the 
Soreg,  a  stone  forbidding  all  but  Jews  to  go 
beyond  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles,  letters 
Jesus  must  often  have  seen.  Here  is  a  Hit- 
tite  monument  with  inscriptions  that  schol- 
ars have  not  been  able  to  translate.  It  was 
better  than  we  had  bargained  for  to  find 
Professor  Hilprecht  upstairs  in  the  Museum 
149 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

at  work  unpacking,  reading,  and  classifying 
four  hundred  cases  of  cylinder  tablets  and 
seals  from  Babylonia.  For  a  half  hour  he 
held  us  spellbound  as  he  read  records  that 
have  come  down  from  forty  centuries  before 
Christ,  writings  of  Sennacherib  and  Ne- 
buchadnezzar, lists  of  Jewish  names  that  ap- 
pear for  the  first  time  in  Babylon  in  the 
times  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  locating  their 
exile  home  and  identifying  the  river  where 
they  sang  their  homesick  songs.  He  made 
us  all  feel  that  Old  Testament  critics,  who 
had  been  wearing  Mercury's  wings  on  their 
sandals,  would  be  safer  in  the  long  run  with- 
out them.  I  shall  never  forget  the  flash  of 
this  scholar\s  eye,  his  enthusiasm  wearing 
his  weight  of  learning  lightly  as  a  flower. 
The  Alexander  Sarcophagus  seems  to  me  the 
very  head  and  front  of  Greek  Art,  bearing 
the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  in  miniature.  It 
is  a  colossal  tomb  of  marble  designed  in  ar- 
150 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

chitectural  perfection,  with  battle-scenes  on 
four  sides  in  high  rehef  The  faces  are  cut 
like  cameos.  The  muscles  of  men's  legs  and 
arms,  the  cords  of  their  necks,  the  terror  of 
a  horse's  eye,  the  spring  of  a  hound,  the 
relaxation  of  dead  bodies,  all  are  past  won- 
der. We  saw  the  place  at  Si  don  where  it 
was  unearthed,  and  cannot  but  wonder  what 
else  is  to  come  to  light.  Much  we  know  is 
forever  lost.  The  Fourth  Crusade  is  respon- 
sible for  the  destruction  of  the  greatest  col- 
lection of  treasures  of  art  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Bv  Constantine,  Justinian,  Theo- 
dosius,  and  the  whole  line  of  Emperors,  the 
earth  had  been  ransacked  for  marbles  and 
bronzes  to  adorn  the  imperial  city.  The 
Hippodrome,  now  an  open  square  where  the 
bronze  tripod  of  Delphi  and  an  obelisk  of 
Heliopolis  stand,  a  building  that  seated 
eighty  thousand  people,  was  lined  with 
works  of  art.  No  hammer  of  Goth  or  Van- 
151 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

dal  was  ever  more  ruthless  than  the  battle- 
axe  of  the  Latin  Crusaders  who  spared  the 
horses  now  at  St.  Mark"'s  in  Venice  only  be- 
cause they  thought  the  bronze  too  poor  to 
melt.  In  1453  the  last  shred  of  the  Chris- 
tian Empire  of  the  East  was  lost  when  the 
Turks  captured  Constantinople,  80,000  of 
them  against  9,000  defenders.  ("  The  Cap- 
tain of  the  Janizaries,"  "  Paul  PatofF,"  and 
the  "  Prince  of  India "  give  good  descrip- 
tions of  the  city.) 

At  Robert  College  on  the  Bosphorus  are 
the  old  towers  and  walls  of  Mahommed  II. 
When  one  thinks  that  they  were  built  in  two 
months  and  have  stood  nearly  five  hundred 
years,  one  does  not  wonder  that  such  brains 
and  energy  as  his  swept  everything  before 
him.  When  Dr.  Hamlin  built  the  College 
he  had  the  mortar  of  Mahommed's  towers 
analyzed,  "  for,"  he  said,  "  our  work  must 
last  as  long  as  his."  It  will  last  longer,  for 
152 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

it  is  filling  the  East  with  light.  It  has  fur- 
nished more  Prime  Ministers  proportionate- 
ly than  any  university  of  Europe.  So  says 
an  English  consul.  And  the  Sultan  said  it 
was  Robert  College  that  took  away  Bul- 
garia from  him.  When  we  went  through 
the  College  gate  we  were  for  the  first  time 
free  from  the  surveillance  of  spies,  for  this 
is  American  property,  with  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  flowing  over  it,  and  no  Turk  can 
enter  without  permission.  The  history  of 
the  years  when  Dr.  Hamlin  was  trying  to 
buy  it  reads  like  a  fairy  tale.  "  My  Life 
and  Times,""  by  Cyrus  Hamlin,  is  a  notable 
book  apart  from  any  Oriental  interest.  Dr. 
Washburn  and  his  staff  gave  us  a  reception, 
inviting  Americans  from  far  and  near.  Miss 
Patrick  of  the  Women's  College,  and  Dr. 
Barnum  and  Professor  Hilprecht.  There  is 
no  other  site  near  Constantinople  that  can 
compare  with  the  spot,  with  the  hills  of 
153 


LETTERS    FROM    EGYPT  AND    PALESTINE 

Roumelia  back  of  it  and  the  Bosphorus  in 
fi'ont  and  below,  looking  up  toward  the 
Black  Sea  and  down  toward  the  city\s  min- 
arets, and  across  to  the  Sweet  Waters  of 
Asia  and  the  defile  through  which  Darius 
marched  his  army.  From  three  to  six  spies 
followed  us  all  the  while.  We  were  delayed 
hours  both  coming  and  going  in  the  exam- 
ination of  our  passports.  The  visit  to 
Robert  College  caused  much  excitement,  and 
more  than  one  in  our  company  who  knew 
the  Turk's  tongue  heard  men  ask  what  this 
thing  meant.  They  say  the  spy  system 
costs  the  government  four  pounds  for  every 
foreigner  who  enters  Constantinople,  but  I 
call  that  a  fairy  tale.  Their  suspicions  are 
past  belief.  Some  New  Testaments  were 
held  by  the  censor  because  of  the  word 
Galatians.  "  Who  is  this  Paul  and  what  is 
he  writing  to  our  people  in  Galata"  (one  of 
the  divisions  of  the  city)  ?  He  was  with 
154 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

difficulty  persuaded  that  Paul  was  dead,  and 
that  the  letter  was  not  part  of  a  plot.  A 
chemistry  was  refused  admission  because  the 
eyes  of  the  censor  fell  on  the  term  H,0, 
which  to  his  cryptic  suspicions  meant  that 
Haniid  II.  amounted  to  nothing.  But  such 
things  are  child's  play  compared  with  what 
happened  to  a  boy  in  Robert  College.  He 
had  come  into  the  city  to  see  the  pageant 
when  the  Sultan  went  to  the  Yildiz-Mosque, 
and  was  describing  his  pleasure  to  a  group 
of  boys  on  his  return.  Speaking  of  the  good 
place  he  had  he  said,  "  I  was  near  enough  to 
the  Sultan  to  shoot  him."  The  unguarded 
expression  was  repeated  by  a  student  spy, 
and  the  boy  was  arrested  and  has  never  been 
seen  since.  No  effort  of  his  friends  or  the 
College  authorities  have  resulted  in  finding 
a  trace  of  the  boy,  who  possibly  is  in  prison 
for  life,  but  more  probably  has  been  thrown 
into  the  Bosphorus. 

155 


LETTERS    FROM   EGYPT   AND    PALESTINE 

Here  word  came  to  us  that  Greece  had 
laid  a  quarantine  on  Constantinople  be- 
cause of  a  reported  case  of  the  plague.  We 
hoped  it  might  be  lifted  after  a  day  or  two, 
but  it  was  not  to  be,  and  our  first  delight  in 
the  outward  beauty  of  the  city,  our  thanks 
to  it  for  saving  Art  and  Literature  and 
Civilization  for  centuries  for  the  world,  our 
pleasure  in  its  mosques  and  bazaars  and  boats 
and  bridges,  struggled  for  existence  against 
its  narrow  dirty  streets,  its  countless  evil- 
looking  dogs  that  offended  our  eyes  all  day 
and  our  ears  all  night,  and  its  crowning 
vvi-ong  in  adding  to  its  own  suspicions  the 
suspicions  of  Greece,  and  compelling  us  to 
sail  by  her  rocky  shores  under  an  unclean 
taboo.  But  it  has  been  borne  with  cheerful 
equanimity.  Some  of  the  travellers  hope  to 
go  back  to  Greece  from  Brindisi,  but  others 
of  us  who  are  committed  by  dates  have  to 
call  it  all  "  Yarrow  unvisited."  We  who 
156 


LETTERS   FROM    EGYPT   AND   PALESTINE 

sail  home  from  Naples  are  to  recoup  our  loss 
and  spend  our  extra  time  in  Rome  before  we 
sail.  The  sail  through  the  ^gean  and 
the  Adriatic  Seas  has  been  bewitching. 
Calm  seas,  blue  skies,  and  every  color  of  the 
changing  daylight  and  the  mystery  of  moon- 
lit nights  were  ours  through  the  voyage  from 
the  Dardanelles  past  Tenedos,  Samothracia, 
Eubora,  Chios,  Cythera,  Corfu,  and  scores  of 
other  islands. 


157 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


unwhbs 
sahta  » 


'-r??^ 


DFEBl 


93105 


ho  ^  0 


illlilllllillllllllllllilliillil 

3  1205  02033  8768 


AA  000  9 IG  4/0 


